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B.ECOB.D 

A  Journal  Devoted  to  the  Practical  Problems 
of  Elementary  and  Secondary  Education 
and  the  Professional  Training  of  Teachers 


1^ 


T^ 


September,  1905 

THE 

EDUCATIONAL  THEORIES 

OF  HERBART  AND  FROEBEL 


U 


35ue 

MAY  1  0   1917 


PUBLISHED   BY 

THE  COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

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Copvrieht,  iQoi;,  by  Teachers  Colleee 


Teachers  College  Record 

Edited  by  Dean  James  E.  Russell 

Teachers  College  Record  is  a  serial  publication  issued 
by  Teachers  College,  Columbia  University,  for  the  purpose  of 
presenting  to  students  of  Education,  and  to  the  public  gener- 
ally, a  comprehensive  view  of  the  history  and  principles  of 
education,  of  educational  administi^tion,  and  of  the  theory 
and  practice  of  teaching  as  advocated  and  followed  by  Teachers 
College  and  its  schools  of  observation  and  practice. 

Published  bi-monthly,  except  July.  Subscription  price, 
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Advertising  rates  given  on  application. 

ANNOUNCEMENT  OF  VOLUMES  VI  AND  VII 

1905  and  1906 

The  special  feature  of  the  year  1905-06  will  be  a  series  of 
monographs  on  the  elementary  school  curriculum,  by  teachers 
of  the  Horace  Mann  Elementary  School,  with  the  co-operation 
of  Professor  Frank  M.  McMurry  and  Principal  Henry  C. 
Pearson.  The  four  numbers  will  present  the  practical  work  of 
the  different  grades  as  follows :  first  grade ;  second  and  third 
grades;  fourth  and  fifth  grades;  sixth  and  seventh  grades. 
Advance  orders  for  the  set  of  four  (price,  $1.00)  will  be  filed 
as  received  and  filled  according  to  date  as  numbers  are  issued. 
Other  issues  now  in  preparation  will  deal  with  "  Problems 
of  Secondary  Education,"  "  Manual  Training,"  and  "  Nature- 
Study." 

Address  all  communications  to  Teachers  College  Record 
Teachers  College,  Columbia  University,  New  York  City 


TAKKw.Ai-i^----— '^^ 


Educatioa 
Library 


CONTENTS 


Introductory  Note     i 

I. — The  Period  and  the  Point  of  View 2 

11. — Rousseau  and  the  Problem  of  Civilization  in 

THE  Eighteenth  Century 6 

III. — The  Transition  Period 13 

IV. — Romanticism 26 

V. — From  Kant  to  Hegel:  The  Idealistic  Interpre- 
tation OF  Nature  and  History      ....  34 

VI. — From  Rousseau  to  Froebel:   The  Evolution  of 

Educational  Ideas        42 

VII. — Realism      in      Philosophy      and      Education: 

Herbart 60 

VIII. — The  Educational  Theories  of  Froebel   ...  74 

IX. — Retrospect  and  Conclusion   ...      .  .  m 


TEACHERS  COLLEGE  RECORD 

Vol.  VI  SEPTEMBER,  1905  No.  4 

THE  EDUCATIONAL  THEORIES  OF 
HERBART  AND  FROEBEL 


By  JOHN  ANGUS  MAC  VANNEL,  Adjunct  Professor  of  the 
Philosophy  of  Education. 

The  rough  notes  and  suggestions  furnished  in  this  Syllabus 
are  an  attempt  (a)  to  outline  the  evolution  of  educational  ideas 
from  Rousseau  to  Froebel  as  an  outcome  of  the  more  general 
movement  in  social  theory,  (b)  to  relate  the  educational  theories 
of  Herbart  and  Froebel  to  the  wider  intellectual  movements  of 
Romanticism,  Realism,  and  Idealism.  It  is  assumed  that  no 
theory,  ethical,  philosophical,  educational,  can  be  completely; 
understood  when  isolated  from  the  human  conditions  which 
produced  it.  The  evolution  of  educational  opinion  is  part  of  the 
entire  intellectual  and  social  movement  of  a  period.  The  outline 
aims  to  trace  in  a  genetic  way  the  emergence  of  certain  ideas 
within  a  particular  period  and  the  transformation  of  educational 
problems  by  these  ideas.  It  does  not,  however,  underrate  the 
value  of  the  study  of  the  personalities  of  the  men  through  whom 
these  ideas  found  their  first  adequate  expression.  A  syllabus  is 
at  best  a  provisional  sketch, — part  seen,  imagined  part.  Brevity 
without  injury  to  clearness  is  in  a  very  real  sense  possible  only 
after  the  most  detailed  exposition.  The  syllabus  of  a  period  so 
complex  as  the  one  here  outlined  can  be  nothing  more  than  a 
plan  of  action,  serving  its  purpose  if  it  in  some  small  way  assist 
students  in  the  organization  of  such  means  of  commimication  as 
may  render  easier  the  transition  from  one  branch  of  knowledge  to 
another.  In  the  course  the  attempt  is  made  gradually  to  formu- 
late a  methodology  of  the  educational  problem,  and  thus  have  it 
serve  as  an  approach  to  a  study  of  the  Philosophy  of  Education. 
211]  I 


a  Teachers  College  Record  [212 

The  syllabus  as  a  whole  aims  to  indicate  the  nature  of  philosophic 
method  in  the  study  of  the  evolution  of  educational  ideas  rather 
than  to  increase  the  store  of  information  concerning  them.  In 
the  present  outline  the  notes  and  references  may  prove  suggestive 
in  some  directions:  they  are  not  intended  to  be  exhaustive  in 
any  direction  whatever. 

THE  PERIOD  AND  THE  POINT  OF  VIEW 

1.  It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  there  cannot  be 
any  adequate  appreciation  of  the  educational  theories  of  the 
present  without  some  tmderstanding  of  the  foundations  of  such 
theories  in  the  needs  and  aspirations,  the  intellectual  and  social 
tendencies  of  the  past.  To  reach  any  definite  conclusions  in 
regard  to  fimdamental  tendencies  in  the  present,  a  study  is 
necessary  of  the  previous  conditions  through  which  they  passed 
in  order  to  reach  the  present.  For  in  any  study  involving  per- 
sonal and  social  progress  there  may  be  recognized  certain  well- 
defined  conceptions  formerly  maintained,  which,  compared  with 
the  present,  will  indicate  with  a  fair  degree  of  security  the  line  of 
future  advance.  Education  is  a  dynamic,  growing  process,  a  part 
of  a  changing  social  situation :  its  theory  is  in  turn  a  function  of 
the  wider  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  of  the  particular  period. 

2.  Educational  theory,  even  while  having  its  especial  and 
clearly  limited  object,  is  closely  involved  in  the  life  of  each 
civilization,  and,  indeed,  in  the  life  of  every  people.  In  each 
age  it  acts  upon  the  spirit  of  the  people,  and  is  in  turn  reacted 
upon  by  that  spirit.  In  its  development  it  is  continuous  with 
the  development  of  other  intellectual  and  social  movements,  of 
literature,  art  and  science,  of  economics,  politics  and  religion. 
In  looking  back  over  the  history  of  the  intellectual  and  social  life 
of  mankind  it  would  appear  to  be  true  that  transitional  eras  in 
scientific,  ethical,  political  or  religious  thought  were  also  eras  of 
corresponding  changes  in  educational  theory  and  practice,  e.  g., 
as  the  present  outline  will  attempt  to  show,  the  development  of 
educational  ideas  from  Rousseau  to  Froebel  is  continuous  with 
the  simultaneous  transformation  and  development  of  philosoph- 
ical and  social  theories,  the  intellectual,  moral  and  aesthetic 
products,  of  the  period  from  Rousseau  to  Hegel. 


213]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel        3 

3.  It  is  still  in  many  quarters  an  open  question  whether 
great  educators  should  be  thought  of  as  heroes  to  be  worshipped, 
as  Carlyle  would  demand,  or  as  representative  men  who  are  to  be 
followed  because  they  express  what  all  are  thinking,  as  Emerson 
would  have  us  believe.  Though,  in  many  cases,  not  philosophers 
in  any  technical  sense,  the  great  educators  inevitably  became 
vehicles  of  philosophical  ideas  and  of  social  tendencies.  Indeed, 
their  essential  originality  in  most  instances  consists  in  the  degree 
to  which  they  were  able  to  synthesize  their  educational  beliefs 
with  the  dominant  intellectual  movements  of  their  time.  While, 
therefore,  in  the  present  outline,  the  emphasis  is  concerned  with 
the  evolution  of  ideas  rather  than  the  biography  of  writers,  it 
would  not  underrate  the  necessity  of  maintaining  a  balance  or 
proportion  between  persons  and  ideas.  It  is  easy  to  over- 
emphasize either,  and  thus  tend  to  give  a  very  misleading  view 
of  a  period  such  as  the  one  tmder  consideration.  For  in  the 
thought  and  teachings  of  the  great  educational  leaders,  embody- 
ing, as  we  have  seen,  the  philosophical  and  social  tendencies  of 
their  period,  is  found  a  unique  confirmation  of  the  personal  as 
well  as  the  organic  nature  of  human  life :  from  the  interdepend- 
ence, moreover,  of  many  and  varied  tendencies  in  literature,  phi- 
losophy, political  theory,  ethics,  and  theology,  one  is  inevitably 
led  to  a  deeper  view  of  human  thought  and  activity,  and  of  the 
spiritual  foundations  of  both. 

4.  The  period  'From  Rousseau  to  Froebel'  lies  between 
what  may  rightly  be  regarded  as  two  great  events  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  educational  ideas,  (a)  the  indictment  of  civilization  and 
culture  by  Rousseau,  and  (6)  the  unique  reconstruction  of  edu- 
cational theory  attempted  by  Froebel.  The  development  of 
educational  ideas  in  this  period  may  be  regarded  either  (a)  as 
the  expression  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  tendencies  and  of 
recognized  practical  needs,  or  (6)  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
actual  definitive  clearness  with  which  the  problems  themselves 
were  stated,  and  solutions  offered  by  educational  leaders.  In 
the  present  outline  the  attempt  is  made  to  indicate  the  possibili- 
ties of  the  study  of  the  period  from  the  twofold  point  of  view. 

5.  The  purposes  of  the  present  outline  may  now  be  given  a 
somewhat  more  formal  statement  as  follows: 

(a)  by  the  use  of  the  comparative  and  historical  method, 


4  Teachers  College  Record  [214 

within  a  limited  area,  to  indicate  what  were  the  more  important 
problems  with  which  the  writers  on  education  dealt,  and  what 
were  the  conditions,  intellectual  and  social,  which  determined 
the  various  statements  of  the  problems  and  the  attempts  at 
their  solution.  Since  educational  theory  is  an  organic  part  of 
the  wider  history  of  culture,  a  syllabus  can,  at  best,  indicate  in 
very  schematic  form  the  directions  and  interrelations  of  the  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  movements  of  a  period  to  which  its  edu- 
cational ideas  were  organic.  Its  peculiar  danger  lies  in  depriving 
the  period  of  its  natural  continuity  of  movement  and  life. 

(6)  to  outline  the  relation  of  the  work  of  Herbart  and  of 
Froebel  to  its  historical  setting,  and  the  dependence  of  their 
theories  upon  the  philosophical  movements  of  the  period.  This 
will  necessitate  some  indication  of  the  philosophical  content  of 
Idealism,  Romanticism,  and  Realism. 

(c)  to  indicate  the  contributions  of  Herbart  and  Froebel  to  a 
philosophy  of  education. 

6.  Before  passing  on  to  the  outline  of  the  period  it  may  be 
well  for  purposes  of  simplification  to  indicate  in  somewhat  dog- 
matic form  what  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  more  important 
phases  of  the  social  problem  in  the  period  as  a  whole : 

(a)  The  period  is  marked,  first  of  all,  by  attempts  at  the 
reconciliation  or  adjustment  of  the  two  elemental  human  ten- 
dencies, that  of  individual  freedom  and  collective  organization. 
The  worth  of  the  individual  and  his  right  to  self-realization  came 
to  fuller  and  fuller  recognition.  This  movement  at  first  took 
the  form,  for  the  most  part,  of  reaction  against  all  existing  institu- 
tions ;  gradually,  however,  the  lesson  was  learned  that  the  indi- 
vidual life  in  itself  is  naught;  only  as  a  member  of  the  great 
institutions  of  the  race  can  the  individual  become  truly  human, 
spiritual  and  free. 

(b)  The  period  is  marked,  in  the  second  place,  by  a  gradual 
change  from  mechanical  and  static  to  organic  and  developmental 
modes  of  viewing  nature  and  human  society.  In  the  place  of 
the  atomistic  view  of  things,  in  politics,  philosophy,  theology, 
and  education,  the  organic  view  of  society,  of  experience,  of  the 
entire  cosmic  process,  came  to  prevail.  The  mental  gaze  was 
transferred  from  the  categories  of  'being'  to  those  of  'becom- 
ing.' 


215]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel    -      5 

(c)  In  the  period  there  may  be  noted  a  gradual  transforma- 
tion of  the  deistic  to  the  theistic  view  of  God's  relation  to  the 
world.  The  mechanical  Deism  gave  way  to  the  more  imma- 
nental  and  spiritual  view  of  Theism,  a  view,  at  times,  closely 
approximating  to  Pantheism. 

{d)  Closely  connected  with  the  preceding  is  the  new  concep- 
tion of  the  relation  and  significance  of  nature  to  the  human 
spirit.  In  place  of  the  view  which  held  to  the  absolute  dualism 
of  nature  and  spirit  came  the  view  of  nature  as  the  manifestation 
of  the  Absolute  and  as  a  medium  through  which  the  human 
spirit  attains  to  self-knowledge  and  self-realization. 

{e)  As  a  final  aspect  of  the  social  problem  during  this  period 
may  be  noted  the  gradual  change  from  an  individualistic  ethics 
to  an  ethics  based  upon  the  demands  of  the  social  whole.  Closely 
connected  with  this,  and  contributing  to  it  were  those  ideas  and 
ideals  of  equality,  humanitarianism,  of  an  aristocracy  of  intel- 
ligence rather  than  birth,  and  of  the  new  developments  in  psy- 
chological, historical,  and  physical  science,  in  literature  and  art, 
in  education  and  philanthropy.  Corresponding  to  the  new 
religious  and  ethical  ideals  there  emerged  in  this  transitional 
period  new  attitudes  to  nature,  to  humanity,  to  the  responsibil- 
ities as  well  as  the  opportimities  of  life. 

References: 

The  more  important  sotirces  of  material  for  the  study  of  the  period 
will  be  indicated  in  connection  with  the  respective  chapters.  It  is  need- 
less to  say  that  the  important  sotirces  are  the  works  of  the  writers  them- 
selves. The  study  of  the  period  is  fundamentally  a  study  of  the  influence 
and  continuous  action  of  works  on  works.  The  various  lists  make  no  pre- 
tension to  completeness.  They  aim  to  be  suggestive  merely,  not  in  any 
sense  exhaustive.  There  are  certain  books  which  it  is  necessary  for  the 
student  to  know  if  he  is  to  be  saved  from  making  discoveries  which  later 
turn  out  to  be  not  discoveries  at  all.  A  few  of  the  more  important  books, 
which,  in  addition  to  the  writings  of  Rousseau,  Kant,  Goethe,  Fichte, 
Hegel,  Pestalozzi,  Herbart,  and  Froebel,  nattu-ally  form  the  nucleus  of 
source-material  for  the  study  of  the  period  (for  the  reason  that  they  in- 
evitably become  incorporated  sooner  or  later  with  our  idea  of  the  period) 
are  the  following: 

Boyesen,  Essays  on  German  Literature;  Caird,  The  Critical 
Philosophy  of  Kant;  Dewey,  The  Child  and  the  Curriculum;  Erd- 
mann,  History  of  Philosophy,  Vol.  II;  Falckenburg,  History  of 
Modern  Philosophy;  Francke,  German  Literature  as  Determined  by 
Social  Forces;   Harris,  Psychologic  Foundations  of  Education  (Part 


Teachers  College  Record  [216 

III);  H6fifding,  History  of  Modern  Philosophy;  Merz,  History  of 
European  Thought  in  the  Nineteenth  Century;  Robertson,  A  History 
of  German  Literature;  Rosenkranz,  The  Philosophy  of  Education; 
Royce,  The  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy;  Scherer,  A  History  of 
German  Literature;  Taylor,  Studies  in  German  Literature;  Ueber- 
weg.  History  of  Philosophy,  Vol.  II;  Willmann,  Didaktik;  Windel- 
band.  History  of  Philosophy;  Wundt,  Ethical  Systems. 


n 

ROUSSEAU    AND    THE    PROBLEM    OF    CIVILIZATION    IN 
THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

I.  The  dominant  tendencies  of  the  intellectual  life  of  the 
eighteenth  century  may  be  indicated  as  follows: 

(a)  A  movement  towards  the  emancipation  of  human 
thought  and  activity,  and  the  liberation  of  man  from  the  influ- 
ence of  past  dogmas  and  traditions.  The  psychology  of  the 
'  Enlightenment '  contained  two  ftmdamental  propositions,  bor- 
rowed from  Leibnitz  (while  omitting  the  deeper  implications  of 
his  doctrine) :  (i)  ideas  are  the  constituents  of  the  mental  life, 
and  (2)  the  fundamental  difference  in  mental  life  is  the  difference 
between  dark  and  clear  ideas.  The  'Enlightenment'  of  the 
understanding  became  the  watchword,  and  to  the  test  of  the 
'  understanding '  every  belief,  institution,  creed,  must  submit 
or  be  rejected. 

(b)  The  ideal  of  Individualism  which  manifested  itself  in  the 
prevailing  theories  of  knowledge,  of  morality,  and  of  human 
society.  In  addition  to  the  notion  borrowed  from  Leibnitz  that 
ideas  are  the  constituent  elements  of  the  mental  life,  a  theory  of 
the  origin  of  these  ideas  had  been  derived  from  English  Em- 
piricism. A  psychology  grotmded  on  experience  and  regarded 
as  the  fundamental  science  became  the  basis  of  attack  in 
political,  aesthetic,  moral,  and  religious  problems,  (i)  Locke 
declared,  "All  knowledge  is  from  experience."  Interpreting 
experience  in  terms  of  sensation,  and  materialistically,  the  Ency- 
clopaedists claimed  that  we  have  no  knowledge  of  anything  in- 
capable of  being  experienced  by  the  senses.  (2)  Pleasure  or 
happiness  was  regarded  as  the  legitimate  end  of  the  individual's 
action  and  enlightened  selfishness  the  only  rule  of  conduct. 


217]     The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel         7 

(c)  The  prevailing  Deism,  or  the  tendency  to  so-called  '  na- 
tural religion'  of  the  period.  In  harmony  with  the  dominant 
intellectualistic  psychology  noted  above,  it  was  at  first  argued 
that  Christianity  was  not  mysterious  but  reasonable,  and  that 
the  value  of  religion  could  not  lie  in  any  unintelligible  element. 
Difficulties  still  remaining,  revealed  religion  came  to  be  ques- 
tioned and  attacked  as  either  superfluous  or  untrue  or  both. 
The  outcome  among  many  of  the  leaders  of  thought  and  opinion 
was  either  mere  toleration  of  or  thoroughgoing  opposition  to 
religious  beliefs,  both  natural  and  revealed. 

(d)  The  belief  in  a  state  of  nature  as  man's  primitive  condition, 
by  some  writers  regarded  as  a  state  of  human  equality,  goodness, 
and  happiness.  Coupled  with  this  is  the  ideal  of  the  so-called 
return  to  nature.  (Concerning  the  notion  of  a  'state  of  nature,' 
see  Davidson's  Rousseau,  pp.  3-23.) 

(e)  The  conception  of  the  state  or  society  as  the  outcome 
of  a  social  contract  consciously  and  voluntarily  entered  into  by 
individuals  for  their  own  good. 

From  the  preceding  analysis  it  will  be  seen  that  the  dominant 
characteristic  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  its  individualism 
and  its  opposition  to  the  accepted  dogmas  as  well  as  the  actual 
conditions  in  church  and  state :  and  the  work  of  its  representative 
thinkers  and  writers  was  directed  chiefly  towards  the  establish- 
ment of  a  new  type  of  philosophy  (theoretical  and  practical), 
based  on  the  principles  of  individualism  and  naturalism.  This 
tendency,  indeed,  had  been  gradually  but  steadily  growing  and 
formulating  itself  through  the  preceding  three  centuries.  It 
came  to  clear  consciousness  in  Rousseau  as  the  problem  of  civili- 
zation. Since  the  Renaissance  a  new  type  of  civilization  and 
culture  had  been  developing,  and  at  length  a  voice  was  raised,  as- 
serting the  falsity  of  the  whole  thing.  Rousseau  in  the  modern, 
as  the  Sophist  in  ancient  times,  was  the  first  clearly  to  raise  the 
question  of  the  worth  of  civilization  to  the  life  of  the  individual. 
In  all  his  writings  this  fiindamental  question  reappears  in  one 
form  or  another  and  again  and  again:  What  is  the  value  and 
significance  of  human  history  and  human  civilization  for  the 
morality  and  happiness  of  the  individual?  Is  it  true,  indeed, 
that  the  growth  of  human  knowledge  and  the  increasing  com- 
plexity  of   human  relationships,    inseparably   connected    with 


8  Teachers  College  Record  [218 

so-called  civilization,  has  been  for  the  good  of  man  as  man,  and 
made  for  his  true  happiness?  Does  not  civilization  hinder 
rather  than  enhance  the  happiness  as  well  as  the  morality  of 
man?  In  whatever  form  this  question  had  hitherto  expressed 
itself,  back  of  it  all  we  find  the  individual  coming  to  a  conscious- 
ness of  himself,  of  his  rights  and  powers,  as  independent  of  what 
he  conceived  to  be  the  arbitrary  environment  which  surroimded 
him.  This  reaction  against  authority,  now  manifest  in  the 
Renaissance,  now  in  the  Reformation,  now  in  the  development 
of  Rationalism,  and  ultimately  in  the  Revolution,  brought  the 
individual  into  sharp  relief.  It  shows  the  individual  continu- 
ally becoming  more  conscious  and  more  determined.  The  very 
meaning  and  significance  of  society  came  to  be  questioned. 
Is  not  society  a  merely  artificial  product  ?  Does  it  not  merely 
impede  the  individual,  hinder  his  development,  and  thwart  his 
freedom?  Is  not  the  individual  man,  after  all,  the  measure  of 
all  things,  the  criterion  of  what  things  are  true,  and  what  things 
are  good? 

2.  When  we  think  of  the  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century  it 
is  the  name  of  Voltaire  which  almost  inevitably  comes  to  mind. 
When  we  consider  the  century  by  itself  it  is  Voltaire  who  perhaps 
best  of  all  embodies  and  represents  the  entire  period.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  we  think  of  the  eighteenth  as  preceding  and 
conditioning  in  large  measure  the  spiritual  history  of  the  nine- 
teenth, it  is  rather  to  Rousseau  and  his  work  that  we  must  turn. 

While  it  is  safe  to  consider  Rousseau  (17 12-17  78)  as  an  epoch- 
maker  in  the  history  of  thought,  nevertheless  to  regard  his  work 
and  that  of  his  contemporaries  as  an  absolute  break  with  the 
past  is  to  take  an  inadequate  view  of  the  entire  movement  which 
it  is  supposed  to  constitute.  In  the  evolution  of  ideas  it  is 
difficult  to  determine  just  when  a  particular  idea  or  tendency 
begins  to  operate.  Failure  to  recognize  the  danger  of  selecting 
arbitrary  starting-points  for  intellectual  and  spiritual  move- 
ments is  to  lose  sight  of  the  essential  continuity  of  human 
thought  and  experience.  As  a  social  phenomenon  Rousseauism 
may  be  said  to  have  been  conditioned  in  its  origin  and  in  its 
course  by  the  character  of  the  period  which  had  preceded  it.  It 
arose,  it  is  true,  in  what  seems  a  distinctly  conscious  break  with 
the  past.     It  was  intended,  indeed,  that  the  past  should  be  sud- 


219]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel         9 

denly  superseded,  that  the  individual  should  be  freed  in  thought 
and  action.  This  very  intention,  however,  had  its  own  historic 
conditions,  its  own  period  of  preparation  in  the  past.  The 
movements,  therefore,  connected  with  the  name  of  Rousseau, 
were  not  altogether  suddenly  initiated,  nor  are  they  yet  by  any 
means  finished  processes.  The  principles  which  made  them  pos- 
sible were  at  work  in  the  preceding  period,  and  even  now  those 
same  principles  are  being  carried  to  their  fuller  development. 

In  estimating  the  character  and  influence  of  Rousseau  it  is 
necessary  to  keep  in  mind  two  things:  (a)  his  own  nature,  (&) 
his  relation  to  the  thought  of  his  times.  He  was  at  once  original 
and  impressionable — an  exponent  perhaps  more  than  the  origin- 
ator of  ideas.  However  inconsistent  at  times  his  writings  may 
appear,  it  is  not  a  difficult  matter  to  realize  how  completely  they 
reveal  the  nature  of  the  man  as  well  as  the  character  of  the  times 
in  which  he  lived. 

3.  Rousseau's  Writings. — As  has  been  noted  above,  the  one 
question  fundamental  to  the  thought  of  Rousseau  is  civilization. 
Partly  owing  to  his  own  character  and  experience,  and  partly  to 
the  influences  at  work  in  the  life  about  him,  Rousseau  became 
the  interpreter  or  exponent  of  the  tendencies  and  aspirations, 
and  of  the  general  temper  of  unrest  prevalent  in  his  time,  and  his 
writings  critiques  of  existing  institutions,  (i)  Discourse  on  the 
Sciences  and  Arts,  1750.  In  1749  the  Academy  of  Dijon  pro- 
posed as  a  theme  for  a  prize-essay  the  topic,  "Has  the  restora- 
tion of  the  sciences  contributed  to  purify  or  corrupt  manners?" 
Rousseau's  essay  won  the  prize.  Henceforth  his  attitude 
towards  civilization  as  making  for  morality  and  happiness  was 
a  negative  one.  (2)  The  Origin  of  Inequality,  1753.  (3)  The 
New  Heloise,  1761.  An  attack  on  the  feudal  family:  his  chief 
w^ork  as  an  imaginative  writer.  " The  novelty  of  the  book  lay," 
writes  Brandes,  "in  the  first  instance,  in  the  fact  that  it  gave 
the  death-blow  to  gallantry,  and,  consequently,  to  the  theory  of 
the  French  classical  period  on  the  subject  of  the  emotions. 
This  theory  was  that  all  noble,  fine  emotions,  and  chief  among 
them  love,  were  the  products  of  civilization."  Brandes  goes 
on  to  note  more  fully  the  four  characteristic  features :  (i)  Love 
as  a  natural,  not  artificial  or  conventional  mannerism,  (ii)  In- 
equality  in   station  of  the  hero  and  heroine,      (iii)  The  moral 


lo  Teachers  College  Record  [220 

conviction  of  the  sanctity  of  marriage,  (iv)  Nature  in  its  literal 
significance.  "For  the  first  time,  out  of  England,  we  have  the 
genuine  feeling  for  nature  in  fiction,  superseding  love-making  in 
drawing-rooms  and  gardens."  (Main  Currents  of  Literature  in 
the  Nineteenth  Century,  Vol.  I.  For  the  influence  of  Rousseau 
on  Goethe,  see  p.  20  ff.  of  the  same  volume.)  (4)  The  Social 
Contract,  1762.  Devoted  to  the  political  problem — the  sover- 
eignty of  the  people,  the  equality  of  men.  "Man  is  born  free 
but  is  everywhere  in  chains."  The  'Social  Contract'  was  but 
a  part  of  a  much  larger  scheme,  as  projected,  of  entire  social 
equality.  (5)  Emile,  1763.  Devoted  to  the  educational  and 
religious  problem.  "While  others  were  content  with  the  mere 
emmciation  of  maxims  and  precepts,  he  breathed  into  them  the 
spirit  of  life,  and  enforced  them  with  a  vividness  of  faith  that 
clothed  education  with  the  augustness  and  unction  of  religion" 
(Morley).  (6)  Confessions,  1782.  Published  four  years  after 
his  death. 

4.  The  Social  and  Ethical  Theories  of  Rousseau. — (i)  The 
theory  of  the  State  of  Nature.  Since,  according  to  Rousseau, 
all  that  is  natural,  all  that  is  good,  all  that  is  fundamentally 
human,  has  disappeared  with  advancing  civilization  and  culture, 
the  only  relief  for  man  from  such  universal  degeneracy  is  to  be 
hoped  for  from  a  return  to  nature  on  the  part  of  the  individual 
and  society  alike.  And  this  return  is  to  be  achieved  through  a 
new  type  of  education  and  the  formation  of  a  state  conformed  to 
nature.  (2)  The  theory  of  the  Social  Contract.  (3)  The  con- 
ception of  the  'general  will.'  (4)  Reaction  against  the  Phi- 
losophy of  the  'Enlightenment' — in  psychology,  in  religion,  in 
aesthetics.  (5)  Education  as  the  fundamental  form  of  social  re- 
construction. (See  Chap.  VI.)  (5)  In  an  appreciation  and  criti- 
cism of  the  doctrines  of  Rousseau  the  following  points  might  be 
noted : 

(a)  Rousseau  did  well  in  forcing  upon  the  reluctant  mind  of 
his  generation  the  problem  of  civilization,  its  validity  and  its 
shortcomings.  But  the  genius  and  temperament  of  Rousseau 
is  destructive,  rather  than  creative  or  reconstructive.  While 
discerning  what  was  transient  in  the  civilization  of  his  day,  he 
was  unable  to  indicate  within  it  that  which  was  of  permanent 
significance  for  humanity. 


2  2 1]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       ii 

(6)  While  he  recalled  his  generation  from  a  blind  worship  of 
the  past,  yet  Rousseau's  appreciation  of  the  meaning  and  signifi- 
cance of  history  was  wholly  inadequate.  As  was  to  be  shown 
by  later  writers,  the  importance  of  the  past  lies  in  its  lesson  for 
the  present  and  future.  The  survival  of  beliefs,  institutions, 
customs,  is  an  evidence  of  their  significance  to  the  human 
spirit,  and  this  is  to  be  estimated, — not  abruptly  denied.  Rous- 
seau, however,  had  little,  if  any,  appreciation  of  the  continuity 
of  history. 

(c)  Rousseau's  notion  of  a  'state  of  nature'  in  which  are 
realized  both  liberty  and  equality  (as  he  uses  the  conceptions) 
seems  impossible  for  man  as  at  present  constituted.  If  you 
have  the  one  you  cannot  have  the  other.  In  Rousseau's  concep- 
tion of  liberty  the  errors  of  individualism  are  set  in  clear  relief. 
In  failing  to  recognize  that  human  life  is  essentially  social  and 
moral,  he  confounds  mere  natural  spontaneity  with  that  rational 
or  spiritual  freedom  which  is  gained,  as  Kant  maintains,  through 
the  limitation  and  control  of  mere  natural  spontaneity  or  desire 
in  the  presence  of  law.     (See  also  Chaps.  Ill  and  VI.) 

(d)  Though  not  a  psychologist  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term, 
nevertheless  Rousseau  maintained  a  psychological  attitude 
towards  life,  with  the  result  that  his  works  contain  the  germs  of 
several  divergent  lines  of  thought  and  experience  in  the  succeed- 
ing generation.  While  he  was  influenced  by  both  Rationalism 
and  Empiricism,  yet  for  him  the  element  of  feeling  is  the  central, 
the  fundamental,  element  in  the  human  mind.  In  Rousseau, 
Romanticism  in  large  measure  took  its  rise.  "The  man  who  has 
lived  most  is  not  he  who  has  numbered  the  most  years,  but  he 
who  has  the  keenest  sense  of  life."  It  was  this  element  of  feeling 
or  passion  which  made  Rousseau's  influence  a  power.  He  in- 
fused into  the  ideas  he  accepted  from  his  time  this  element  of 
passion,  and  at  once  they  became  vital,  influential  in  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  his  readers.  By  vindicating  with  impassioned 
eloquence  the  right  of  the  whole  personality  of  the  individual 
to  participate  in  the  solution  of  its  deepest  problems,  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  one-sided  'understanding'  of  the  'Enlightenment,' 
Rousseau  became  a  pre-Kantian  defender  of  the  faith  of  practi- 
cal reason.  His  words  found  their  response  in  Herder,  Goe- 
the, Schiller,  Kant,  Fichte,  and  Pestalozzi.     His  emotions  were, 


I  a  Teachers  College  Record  [222 

moreover,  extremely  complex, — now  self-centered  and  selfish, 
now,  to  all  appearances,  altogether  altruistic.  He  felt  keenly  the 
burden  of  hvmian  life  in  the  France  of  his  day,  yet  he  too  often 
regarded  it  as  merely  his  own.  In  this  passionate  exercise  of 
feeling  there  was  something  which  constantly  tended  to  carry 
him  beyond  a  purely  individualistic  view  of  man,  and  to  a  more 
adequate  conception  of  his  relation  to  nature,  to  other  men  and 
to  God  than  had  hitherto  prevailed.  Although,  for  example, 
his  notion  of  religion  is  still,  in  the  main,  deistic,  yet  connected 
with  it  is  an  emotional  element  which  is  an  anticipation  of  a 
newer  conception  which  was  soon  to  follow.  "I  believe  in 
God  .  .  .  because  a  thousand  motives  of  preference  at- 
tract me  to  the  side  that  is  most  consoling,  and  join  the  weight 
of  hope  to  the  equilibrium  of  reason."  Further  his  sympathy 
towards  man  has  within  it  the  promise  of  better  things  to  come. 
"  It  is  the  common  people,"  he  writes,  "who  compose  the  human 
race :  what  is  not  the  people  is  so  trivial  that  it  is  not  worth  tak- 
ing into  accoimt.  Before  one  who  reflects,  all  civil  distinctions 
disappear;  he  sees  the  same  passions,  the  same  feelings  in  the 
clown  as  in  the  man  of  note  and  reputation;  he  only  distin- 
guishes their  language,  and  a  varnish  more  or  less  elaborately 
laid  on."  Thus  Rousseau's  somewhat  emotional  'return  to  na- 
ture' had  important  bearings  upon  (i)  the  reaction  against  mere 
rationalism  in  matters  of  belief,  (2)  the  movement  towards  de- 
mocracy with  its  deeper  and  wider  Humanism  and  its  apprecia- 
tion of  the  worth  and  dignity  of  man  as  man,  (3)  the  appreciation 
of  the  significance  of  nature  for  the  human  spirit,  and  of  its 
power  to  respond  and  minister  to  human  needs.  Rousseau's 
work,  though  for  the  most  part  destructive,  contained  within 
it  elements  which,  later  on,  inevitably  made  for  social  recon- 
struction. 

References: 

Bonar,  Philosophy  and  Political  Economy;  Bosanquet,  Philo- 
sophical Theory  of  the  State;  Brtinetidre,  History  of  French  Litera- 
ture; Davidson,  Rousseau  and  Education  according  to  Nature; 
Dieterich,  Kant  und  Rousseau;  Fester,  Rousseau  und  Geschichtsphi- 
losophie;  Hudson,  Rousseau;  Levy-Bruhl,  History  of  Modern  Phi- 
losophy in  France;  Macdonald,  Studies  in  the  France  of  Voltaire 
and  Rousseau;  Motley,  Rousseau;  Ritchie,  Natural  Rights;  Win- 
delband,  History  of  Philosophy;  Wiindt,  Ethical  Systems. 


223]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       13 

Further  problems  for  study: 

1.  Sources  of  the  doctrine  of  Rousseau. 

2.  Rousseau's  psychology. 

3.  The  concept  of  'equality'  in  the  writings  of  Rousseau. 

4.  Rousseau's  theory  of  society. 

5.  The  conception  of  civilization  in  Rousseau. 

6.  The  conception  of  the  '  general  will '  in  Rousseau. 

7.  Rousseau's  doctrine  of  nature  and  culture. 

8.  Rousseau's  relation  to  Romanticism. 

Q.     Influence  of  Rousseau  on  Kant,  Goethe,  and  Pestalozzi. 


m 

THE  TRANSITION  PERIOD 

I.  The  eighteenth  century,  though  a  period  in  which  there 
existed  a  certain  tendency  to  remain  self-satisfied  with  the  exist- 
ing condition  of  things,  was  nevertheless  in  Germany,  France,  and 
England  fraught  with  immense  possibilities  in  politics,  in  indus- 
try, in  science,  in  literature,  in  philosophy,  and  religion.  The 
age  led  out  beyond  itself  in  many  directions.  In  Germany, 
during  the  last  quarter  of  the  century  especially,  it  became  an 
era  of  transition  in  which  new  aspirations,  new  ideas  of  life  and 
conduct  became  formative  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men.  In 
philosophy,  literature  and  theology  is  found  during  this  period 
the  most  fruitful  contribution  of  Germany,  where  the  period  of 
transition  took  the  form  of  intellectual  rather  than  political  or 
industrial  revolution. 

2.1  Without  any  attempt  at  completeness  the  following 
characteristics  may  be  noted  as  the  more  important  for  the 
present  purpose:  (i)  Its  struggle  for  truth  and  the  strengthening 
of  the  critical  insight.  (zO  Its  opposition  of  the  original  force 
and  simplicity  of  nature  to  the  artificial  forms  of  culture  and 
society.  (3)  The  gradual  prevalence  of  organic  over  mechanical 
modes  of  thinking,  leading  to  new  conceptions  of  God's  rela- 
tion to  the  world,  of  the  interrelations  of  men  and  the  relation 
and  significance  of  nature  to  the  spiritual  life.  ^4)  A  tendency 
towards  individualism  and  an  emphasis  of  the  subjective,  per- 
sonal aspect  of  truth,  and  an  tmceasing  search  for  fresh  spiritual 
life  and  light  in  art  and  literature,  in  philosophy  and  religion. 
(5)  The  struggle  for  freedom  of  conscience,  the  deepening  of  the 


14  Teachers  College  Record  [224 

sense  of  the  value  of  the  individual,  his  right  to  self-realization,  an 
ideal  of  human  advancement  through  individual  self-culture. 
Coupled \vith  this  is  a  new  Humanism  in  literature,  art,  and  moral 
theory.  / 

3.  (a)  Lessing  (1729-1781)  as  Pathfinder,  "a  man  who, 
while  combining  in  himself  the  enlightenment,  the  idealism,  the 
imiversality  of  the  best  of  his  age,  added  to  this  an  intellectual 
fearlessness  and  a  constructive  energy  which  have  made  him  the 
champion[[destroyer  of  despotism,  and  the  master  builder  of 
lawful  freedom"  (Francke).  The  forerunner  of  classical  German 
literature — Principal  works — (i)  Minna  von  Barnhelm,  Emilia 
Galotti,  Nathan  the  Wise,  and  The  Education  of  the  Human 
Race;  (2)  Hamburg  Dramaturgy,  and  Laocoon,  Their  political, 
aesthetic,  ethical  and  religious  significance — Embodiments  of 
those  movements  which  were  to  make  for  human  freedom,  for 
social  reconstruction  and  consolidation. 

(6)  In  Lessing  may  be  noted  (i)  the  influence  of  the  transi- 
tional period  in  which  he  lived.  Neither  the  orthodoxy,  the 
pietism,  nor  the  rationalism  of  his  day  completely  satisfied  him. 
No  radical  innovator,  Lessing  aimed  at  a  gradual  transformation 
of  the  existing  state  of  things.  Through  his  attempts  at  literary 
and  artistic  reform,  his  search  for  the  true  lines  of  social  progress, 
his  demand  for  religious  freedom,  he  became  in  his  century  a 
imique  representative  of  the  movement,  not  merely  of  emancipa- 
tion but  of  reconstruction.  (2)  A  passionate  love  of  truth,  a 
demand  for  freedom  of  thought  and  conscience  and  the  concep- 
tion of  eternal  striving  as  the  true  duty  of  man.  "Not  the 
truth  of  which  any  one  is,  or  supposes  himself  to  be,  possessed, 
but  the  upright  endeavor  he  has  made  to  arrive  at  truth,  makes 
the  worth  of  a  man.  For  not  by  the  possession,  but  by  the  in- 
vestigation, of  truth  are  his  powers  expanded,  wherein  alone  his 
ever-growing  perfection  consists.  Possession  makes  us  easy,  in- 
dolent, proud. — If  God  held  all  truth  shut  in  His  right  hand,  and 
in  His  left  hand  nothing  but  the  ever-restless  instinct  for  truth, 
though  with  the  condition  of  forever  and  ever  erring,  and  should 
say  to  me,'  Choose! ' — I  should  bow  humbly  to  His  left  hand,  and 
say,  '  Father,  give!  pure  truth  is  for  Thee  alone.' "  (Compare  the 
ideas  of  Goethe,  Kant,  and  Fichte.)  (3)  Closely  connected  with 
the  idea  of  eternal  striving  is  his  possession  of  the  historical  sense, 


225]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       15 

his  anticipation  of  the  idea  of  organic  growth  and  its  resviltant 
optimism.  (4)  A  combination  of  cosmopolitan  toleration  and 
nationalism,  an  ideal  of  freedom  whose  foundations  are  laid  in 
discipline,  an  individualism  resting  on  habits  of  self-control  and 
self -surrender.  (5)  The  conception  of  feeling  as  the  fundamental 
element  of  the  psychical  life.  (6)  The  accordance  of  his  views 
of  God,  the  world  and  the  human  soul  with  those  of  Leibnitz. 
The  idea  of  inner  connection  between  nature  and  history.  For 
Lessing,  influenced  by  Spinoza,  there  exists  an  immanent  rather 
than  transcendent  relation  between  God  and  the  world,  and 
reality  as  a  whole  is  in  a  ceaseless  process  of  becoming  and  de- 
velopment. God  does  not  exist  apart  from  the  world:  He  is  to 
be  conceived,  rather,  as  the  soul  of  the  world.  (7)  Influence  of 
Lessing  upon  Herder  and  Goethe. 

{c)  In  The  Education  of  the  Human  Race  (1780),  perhaps  the 
most  suggestive  of  his  writings,  which  is  closely  connected  in 
many  ways  with  Nathan  the  Wise,  which  preceded  it,  Lessing 
formulates  his  general  ethical  and  philosophical  position  in  the 
form  of  an  ideal  of  religion, — of  a  new  gospel.  In  this  brief 
treatise  is  found  an  application  of  the  Leibnitzian  idea  of  de- 
velopment to  the  history  of  positive  religions.  The  history  of 
the  various  religions  of  the  world  is  an  education  of  the  human 
race  through  divine  revelation.  In  them  we  are  not  to  find  mere 
blind  striving  and  error,  but  rather  the  only  road  by  which  the 
human  mind  in  each  instance  has  been  able  to  develop,  and  along 
which  it  will  develop  still  farther.  What  education  is  to  the 
individual  man,  revelation  is  to  the  whole  human  race.  By 
means  of  revelation  the  human  race  is  raised  from  lower  to 
higher  stages.  Every  individual  must  traverse  the  same  course 
as  that  by  which  the  race  attains  its  perfection ;  and  just  as  the 
education  of  the  individual  puts  nothing  foreign  or  extraneous 
into  him,  but  merely  puts  him  in  possession  more  quickly  of  that 
which  he  could  have  reached  for  himself,  so  is  human  reason  il- 
luminated by  revelation  concerning  things  to  which  it  could 
have  attained  by  its  own  unaided  efforts,  only  that  without  the 
divine  cooperation  the  process  would  have  been  infinitely  more 
arduous  and  prolonged. 

4.  In  Herder's  interpretation  of  nature  and  history  there  may 
be  noted:    (a)  Certain  general  characteristics  of  the  mind  and 


1 6  Teachers  College  Record  [226 

work  of  Herder  (i  744-1803)  which  served  to  give  him  an  influen- 
tial place  in  the  movement  of  ideas  in  this  era  of  transition:  (i) 
Endowed  with  wonderful  spiritual  vitality,  deep  feeling,  pro- 
found interpretative  power,  Herder  was  able  to  vitalize  the  in- 
tellectual life  of  his  time  as  was  perhaps  no  other  writer  of  the 
period.  Compared  with  that  of  Kant,  his  mind  was  of  the  syn- 
thetic, the  formative,  rather  than  of  the  analytic  or  critical  type. 
"  Life,  Love,  Light,"  the  words  written  on  his  tomb  and  on  the 
statue  at  Weimar,  embody  the  spirit  and  the  spiritual  aspirations 
of  Herder.  (2)  In  his  refinement  of  the  philosophy  of  feeling,  of 
its  basal  character  in  the  personal  life,  against  the  demand  of 
mere  reason  or  understanding.  Herder  may  be  regarded  as  a 
forerunner  of  Romanticism  in  Germany,  as  was  Rousseau  in 
France.  He  resembled  the  Romanticists  also  in  his  inability  to 
keep  his  poetic,  his  philosophic  and  his  religious  ideas  apart. 
(3)  Through  his  study  of  primitive  poetry  and,  notably,  by  his 
essay  on  Ossian,  Herder  taught  the  value  of  the  poetry  of  the 
people  as  contrasted  with  that  of  the  cultured.  (4)  As  one  who 
had  in  early  life  received  much  inspiration  from  Rousseau, 
Herder  was  a  strong  defender  of  the  claims  of  nature,  freedom, 
and  the  right  of  the  individual  to  self-realization.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  ethics,  he  maintains  against  Kant,  his  former 
teacher,  that  the  end  of  life  must  lie  in  the  particular  and  indi- 
vidual rather  than  merely  in  the  race.  To  each  individual  is 
allotted  such  development  and  perfection  as  is  possible  at  the 
given  stage.  Yet  Herder  recognizes  that  this  development  is 
rendered  possible  only  through  (i)  reciprocal  action  between 
individuals,  and  (ii)  transmission  of  the  acquired  means  of  culture 
from  generation  to  generation.  It  is  this  interrelation  between 
individuals  and  generations  which  produces  humanity  and  ren- 
ders a  philosophy  of  history  possible.  In  the  work  of  Herder 
as  a  whole  there  are  theseemingly  contradictory  tendencies, — to 
hold  fast  equally  to  individualism  and  to  collectivism,  and,  in- 
deed, to  pantheism. 

(b)  Herder's  Ideas  for  a  Philosophy  of  History  of  Mankind  was 
published  between  1784-1791.  This  work,  with  Kant's  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason,  gives  utterance  to  the  most  important  intellec- 
tual drift  of  the  last  century.  In  this  book,  says  Pfleiderer,  meet, 
as  in  a  focus,  the  combined  results  of  Herder's  various  philo- 


227]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       17 

sophical  labors,  labors  which  opened  up  new  and  magnificent 
points  of  view  especially  in  those  branches  of  study  which  were 
depreciated  by  Kant,  viz.,  the  emotional  side  of  the  life  of  the 
human  soul  and  the  development  of  mankind  under  tlie  com- 
bined action  of  the  natural  and  spiritual  forces  in  history. 

In  an  analysis  of  Herder's  Ideas  the  following  points  should 
be  noted:    (i)  His  aim  is  to  explain  human  evolution  as  ulti- 
mately an  outcome  of  man's  physical  environment.     Man  is  to 
be  viewed  as  a  part  of  nature — ^nature's  last  child,  her  first  freed- 
man — and  his  various  forms  of  development  as  purely  natural 
processes.     In  man  is  the  meeting-point  of  the  physical  and 
ethical  series.     Kant,  on  the  other  hand,  whom  Herder  opposed, 
viewed  human   evolution   as  the  gradual  manifestation   of  a 
growing  faculty  of  rational  free-will,  and  opposed   it    to  the 
operations  of  physical  nature.     (2)  He  asserts  the  interconnec- 
tion according  to  law  of  all  things  in  nature  and  history.     This 
presupposes  a  ground  of  vmity  in  existence.     "  God  is  everything 
m  His  works."     (3)  In  his  conception  of  development  Herder  is 
dominated  by  Spinoza,  Rousseau  and  Leibnitz.     To  Spinoza  he 
owed  much  of  his  monistic  conception  of  things,  the  tmity  of 
God  and  the  world,  of  nature  and  spirit.     With  Rousseau,  he 
lays  stress  on  the  earlier  stages  of  human  development,  since 
because  of  their  simpler  and  more  spontaneous  character  (cf. 
Schiller)  they  appear  to  him  the  more  real  and  valuable.     His 
doctrine  of  organic  forces  is  a  transformation  of  Leibnitz's  theory 
of  monads.     These  forces,  after  the  fashion  of  the  active  force 
in  our  thought,  operate  in  different   degrees  and  at  various 
stages  through  all  nature,   which   forms   one   vast   organism. 
Even  in  tmconscious  nature,  ideal  forces  unceasingly  operate 
and  organize  in   accordance  with  definite  types.     The  lower 
forms  of  life  prefigure  man  in  tmequal  degrees  of  imperfection. 
(4)  Since  the  development  of  man  is  to  be  explained  in  con- 
nection with   his  environment,  his  mental  faculties   are  to  be 
viewed  in  relation  to  his  organization  and  as  developed  under 
the  pressure  of  the  necessities  of  life.     The  great  law  of  nattire 
is  that  everywhere  on  earth  everything   be  realized  that  can 
be  realized  there:  its  end, — humanity  and  the  development 
of   human  capacities.     Preceding  abstract   thought  there  was 
the  religious  consciousness   of  the   invisible  forces  in    nature. 


1 8  Teachers  College  Record  [228 

Reason  is  not  innate:  it  is  a  product.  Our  thoughts  have  been 
acquired  through  tradition,  speech,  environmental  influences. 
Man  comes  into  the  world  to  learn  reason.  This  is  nothing, 
Herder  claims,  other  than  something  acquired,  a  proportion 
and  direction  of  ideas  and  faculties  which  we  must  learn,  and  to 
which  man,  according  to  his  organization  and  way  of  life,  must 
be  educated.  The  individual  becomes  man  only  through  a 
process  of  education,  and  education  proceeds  through  the  par- 
ticipation of  the  individual  in  the  life  of  the  race. 

5.  (a)  Kant  (1724-1804)  once  declared  that,  after  all,  the 
greatest,  and  perhaps  sole,  use  of  philosophy  is  merely  negative, 
and,  instead  of  discovering  truth,  has  only  the  more  modest 
merit  of  preventing  error.  His  own  work  resolves  itself  into 
a  critical  account  of  the  nature,  possibility  and  limits  of  hu- 
man experience.  Starting  from  the  accepted  order  of  nature 
and  the  moral  order  acknowledged  in  the  conviction  of  duty, 
Kant  seeks  to  answer  the  question,  What  do  these  imply?  His 
accotmt  is  embodied  in  the  three  Critiques :  (i)  the  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason  (1781),  presenting  an  epistemological  view  of  ex- 
perience, (2)  the  Critique  of  the  Practical  Reason  (1788),  in 
which  Kant  develops  an  ethical  interpretation  of  experience 
on  the  basis  of  results  reached  in  the  epistemological,  (3)  the 
Critique  of  Judgment  (1790),  in  which  the  attempt  is  made  to 
develop  an  aesthetic  and  teleological  interpretation  of  the  world. 

(6)  In  attempting  to  give  a  reasonably  adequate  statement 
of  important  factors  in  the  work  of  Kant  it  would  be  necessary 
to  give  an  analysis  of  the  following:  (i)  his  relation  to  Em- 
piricism (Hume),  to  Rationalism  (Leibnitz),  to  Dualism  (Des- 
cartes), and  to  Naturalism  (Rousseau);  (2)  the  meaning  of  the 
critical  rae\ho6i\  (3)  the  significance  of  the  problem  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  experience;  (4)  the  distinction  between  the  matter  and 
form  of  knowledge;  (5)  the  nature  of  the  three  fundamental 
forms,  space,  time,  causation,  as  functions  of  human  intelli- 
gence; (6)  the  doctrine  of  the  categories;  (7)  the  doctrine  of 
freedom;  (8)  the  categorical  imperative;  (9)  the  Kantian  doc- 
trine of  personality;  (10)  the  interpretation  of  the  adaptation 
of  nature  to  intelligence.  In  this  connection  it  is  only  possible 
to  indicate  very  briefly  the  outcome  of  the  Kantian  theory  of 
knowledge. 


229]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herhart  and  Froebel        19 

(c)  Kant's  Epistemology.  Kant's  question  is,  in  brief, 
What  is  experience,  what  does  it  involve,  and  how  do  we  get 
knowledge  by  means  of  it?  The  point  of  view  of  the  common 
consciousness  and  of  Empiricism  is  that  whatever  is  known  by 
experience  exists  full-formed  and  complete  before  it  is  ex- 
perienced, and  that  knowledge  consists  in  the  passive  appre- 
hension of  this  pre-existent  world  of  objects.  On  the  other 
hand,  Kant  insists  that  knowledge  and  therefore  experience 
is  possible  through  the  co-operation  of  two  faculties, — sense 
and  understanding.  Both  are  absolutely  essential.  Through 
sense  the  objects — ^the  matter — of  knowledge,  are  given; 
through  understanding  they  are  thought,  formed,  or  under- 
stood, i.  e.,  become  real  objects  of  knowledge.  As  for  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  so  for  Kant  the  "sensible"  is,  properly  speaking, 
no  "thing"  at  all,  but  capable  of  becoming  something  through 
the  determining  action  of  thought.  Thus  Kant  attempts  a 
reconciliation  between  Empiricism  and  Rationalism,  admitting 
with  the  Empiricist  that  sense  must  furnish  the  material  or 
empirical  element  of  knowledge,  while  with  the  Rationalist  he 
contends  that  the  understanding  must  furnish  its  necessary  and 
universal  form.  Not  that  by  sense  an  object  is  given  as  a  de- 
termined object,  for  all  determination  comes  from  the  under- 
standing. All  that  is  meant  is  that  the  material,  the  chaos 
of  sensations,  is  furnished  by  sense,  to  be  determined  through 
the  categories  of  the  understanding.  Thus  a  knowledge  of  de- 
termined objects  is  gained  through  the  joint  operation  of  sense 
and  understanding. 

For  Kant,  therefore,  the  problem  of  philosophy  resolves 
itself,  first  of  all,  into  a  theory  of  knowledge.  The  theory  of 
knowledge  developed  in  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  is  the  ne- 
cessary basis  and  real  presupposition  of  the  views  regarding 
ethics  and  the  philosophy  of  religion  which  are  developed  in 
the  Critique  of  Practical  Reason  and  the  Critique  of  Judgment. 
For  Kant,  as  was  implied  in  the  preceding  paragraph,  the 
peculiar  note  of  experience  is  the  connectedness  of  perceptions, 
or  the  reference  of  individual  presentations  of  sense  to  the  unity 
of  the  object  or  thing  known.  The  essential  fact  in  knowledge 
is  synthesis.  Every  judgment  of  experience  contains  synthesis. 
This  synthesis  implies,  according  to  Kant,  four  things:    (i)  a 


ao  Teachers  College  Record  [230 

manifold  of  sense  which  is  combined;  (2)  the  forms  (space  and 
time)  in  which  this  manifold  is  received;  (3)  the  forms  (the 
categories,  whose  supreme  condition  is  the  unity  of  appercep- 
tion) tmder  which  the  manifold  so  received  is  cognized;  (4) 
the  unity  of  consciousness  itself  (the  'static  and  permanent 
ego').  The  'static  and  permanent  ego'  is  the  presupposition 
of  all  connected  experience.  The  mind  is  something  more 
than  a  passive  thing,  a  mere  creature  of  environment.  For 
Kant,  accordingly  (and  this  is  how  he  meets  Hume),  the  modes 
of  synthesis  by  which  the  given  manifold  of  sense  is  reduced  to 
the  tmity  of  self-consciousness  are  at  the  same  time  the  modes 
of  objective  existence.  That  is  to  say,  self-consciousness  is  im- 
possible apart  from  its  object,  apart  from  the  orderly,  sys- 
tematic connection  of  phenomena  which  we  call  experience. 

Starting  provisionally  from  the  ordinary  dualism  of  thought 
and  things,  by  a  gradual  transformation  of  the  theory  Kant 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the  only  way  of  accounting  for 
the  endless  order  of  nature  is  that  it  is  one  which  our  own  in- 
telligence forges;  that,  instead  of  our  passively  receiving  or 
apprehending  objects  (which  the  Empiricists  had  maintained 
as  the  sole  condition  of  our  ordered  experience),  it  is  rather,  says 
Kant,  by  our  intelligence  alone  that  known  objects  are  consti- 
tuted. Our  "experience"  must  forever  remain  unaccounted 
for  and  unexplained  so  long  as  we  remain  in  the  belief  that 
thought  and  nature,  the  rational  and  the  sensible,  are  abstract  op- 
posites.  The  point  of  view,  then,  which  Kant  would  have  us 
take  is  this,  that  the  science  of  being  and  the  science  of  knowl- 
edge are  organically  one  and  inseparable.  The  question  whether 
Kant  consistently  maintained  himself  in  this  position  will  be 
referred  to  in  a  subsequent  section. 

On  this  basis  the  Kantian  theory  of  knowledge  would 
seem  to  imply  that  the  relation  between  subject  and  object, 
mind  and  matter,  is  one  of  organic  identity,  and  not  of  mechan- 
ical separation  and  opposition.  The  recognition  that  conscious- 
ness is  a  necessary  element  in  all  that  is  for  it,  and  that  existence 
is  existence  for  a  self,  is  at  once  the  discovery  that  the  object  of 
knowledge  is  phenomenal,  and  at  the  same  time  it  is  the  dis- 
covery of  the  noumenon  of  which  it  is  the  phenomenal:  con- 
sciousness, in  other  words,  in  the  very  act  of  being  conscious 


231]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       21 

transcends  the  dualism  between  itself  and  its  object.  Just  here 
is  to  be  foiind  the  starting-point  of  post-Kantian  metaphysics, — 
a  metaphysics  based  upon  the  generalization  of  the  Kantian 
cognitive  consciousness.  For  to  admit  iwith  Kant  that  all 
existence  is  existence  for  a  self  is  to  admit  a  principle  the  com- 
plement of  which  became  the  fimdamental  doctrine  of  post- 
Kantian  Idealism,  namely,  that  all  existence  is  the  manifestation 
of  a  self, — ^that  subject  and  object,  spirit  and  nature,  the  self 
and  the  world,  are  not  isolated,  self-existent  entities,  but  move 
and  have  their  being  in  the  persisting  purpose  of  one  immanent, 
absolute,  spiritual  life. 

(d)  Kant's  Ethical  Theory.  For  analysis  and  criticism  of 
Kant's  ethical  theory  see  Bradley,  Ethical  Studies  (iv);  Caird, 
The  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant,  Vol.  II;  Dewey,  The  Study  of 
Ethics,  A  Syllabus,  sec.  36;  Mackenzie,  Manual  of  Ethics; 
Schurman,  Kantian  Ethics  and  the  Ethics  of  Evolution;  Sidgwick, 
Methods  of  Ethics,  Book  III.  Note  especially  Kant's  doctrine 
in  relation  to  (i)  the  unconditional  character  of  morality,  (2) 
the  autonomy  of  obligation,  (3)  antithesis  of  reason  and  feeling, 
of  the  'noumenal'  self,  setting  up  the  ideal  of  action  and  eflEort, 
and  the  'phenomenal'  self,  made  up  of  feelings  and  impulses 
which  furnish  the  materials  of  volition — man  as  'natural'  and 
aS;  ' iatelligible '  being,  (4)  freedom  as  an  endowment  rather 
than,  as  with  Fichte,  a  spiritual  achievement  through  develop- 
ment and  work,  (5)  self -consciousness  as  the  source  of  moral 
responsibility,  (6)  'the  good  will,'  (7)  society  as  a  'kingdom  of 
ends,'  (8)  the  duties  of  self-preservation  and  self -development, 
(9)  the  law  of  reason  as  the  fundamental  law  of  nature,  i.  ^.,the 
rational  and  spiritual  principle  revealed  in  human  nature,  the 
constitutive  principle  of  the  reality  of  the  world  as  a  whole. 

(e)  For  our  present  purpose  it  will  suffice  to  indicate  in 
schematic  form  the  more  prominent  results  of  Kant's  inquiries: 
(i)  The  true  critical  method  is  the  very  opposite  of  that  easy- 
going scepticism  which  regards  a  solution  of  the  questionings 
of  human  reason  as  impossible.  Reason  must  be  credited  with 
the  power  to  answer  the  questions  to  which  it  has  itself  given  rise. 
This  critical  method  has  permanent  significance  for  the  study  of 
philosophy,  art  and  literature,  religion  and  human  institutions. 
(2)  Everything  is  derived  from  experience  except  the  capacity 


22  Teachers  College  Record  [232 

for  experience.  Herein  lies  the  possibility  of  education  and  of 
the  direction  of  personal  development.  (3)  Personal  experience, 
however,  is  not  a  stream  of  isolated  sensations,  but  an  organic 
unity,  united  by  self-consciousness,  and  formally  determined  by 
the  nature  of  the  thinking  subject.  Each  individual,  by  his  own 
mental  processes,  builds  up  his  own  world  of  inner  experience. 

(4)  The  individual  is  no  mere  knowing  machine  set  in  mechanical 
juxtaposition  over  against  a  world  independent  of  intelligence: 
rather  as  an  intelligent  self  he  finds  himself  in  the  midst  of  an 
intelligible  world,  related  and  adapted  to  intelligence,  bone  of 
his  bone,  flesh  of  his  flesh.  For  Kant  objective  consciousness 
becomes  real  only  when  it  becomes  subjective:  self-conscious- 
ness, likewise,  becomes  real  only  when  it  finds  an  object  through 
which  it  can  realize  itself.  Thus  the  self  and  its  object  are 
equally  the  results  of  a  process.  Back  of  the  distinction  between 
the  self  and  the  object  there  is  the  experience  process.  The 
consciousness  of  the  object  and  the  consciousness  of  the  self 
issue  in  their  difference  from  a  common  source;  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  object  is  an  essential  element  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  self.  Herein  is  Kant's  interpretation  of  the  place 
of  nature  (the  objective  world)  in  the  evolution  of  intelligence. 

(5)  In  keeping  with  the  results  reached  in  his  epistemological 
inquiry,  in  the  ethical  interpretation  of  experience,  Kant  finds 
the  law  for  man's  right  action  not  in  anything  foreign  or  ex- 
ternal to  him  but  in  man's  innermost  nature.  This  innermost 
essence  of  man  is  will.  The  fact  of  the  existence  of  morality 
or  duty  is  sufficient  evidence  for  Kant  that  reason  prescribes 
ends  for  itself.  The  realization  of  duty,  moreover,  would  be 
impossible  for  a  being  who  is  not  conceived  of  as  free  or  capa- 
ble of  self-determination.  In  obedience  to  the  moral  law,  the 
fundamental  fact  in  ethics  and  religion,  man  finds  proof  of  his 
freedom  and  of  his  membership  in  a  moral  order  of  the  world. 
Thus  for  Kant  personality  is  central, — personality  not  in  isola- 
tion as  with  Rousseau,  but  in  a  society  of  moral  beings  united 
by  the  law  of  duty.  The  end  of  life  is  not  happiness  but  work 
in  the  service  of  humanity.  (6)  Intellectual  development,  be- 
cause of  its  evident  limitations  in  relation  to  the  deeper  needs 
of  the  spiritual  life,  is  less  directly  significant  than  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  feeling  of  reverence  for  the  moral  law  and  of  a  never- 


233]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       23 

ending  aspiration  towards  its  realization.  The  moral  law  is  the 
central  truth  in  Kant's  world  and  is  for  him  the  essential  ele- 
ment in  human  education. 

6.  (a)  Goethe  (1749-1832),  and  Schiller  (1759-1805),  to- 
gether with  Kant,  the  heroic  figures  in  German  culture — Rea- 
sons for  not  including  the  work  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  in  the 
Romantic  Movement — Goethe's  individuality — His  lyrical  poetry 
a  sincere  expression  of  his  inner  life  and  a  faithful  reflection  of 
his  intellectual  and  moral  development — Influence  of  Rousseau, 
Lessing,  Herder  and  Schiller — The  romantic  and  the  classical 
influences — His  works  as  "fragments  of  a  great  confession" — 
Faust  as  autobiographical — The  adjustment  of  the  individual 
and  collective  ideals  in  Goethe's  life  and  writings — Goethe  as 
the  apostle  of  self-culture — Arnold's  judgment  of  Goethe,  "the 
greatest  poet  of  modern  times  .  .  .  because  he  was  by  far 
our  greatest  modern  man,"  compared  with  Richard  Holt  Hut- 
ton's,  "Goethe  was  the  wisest  man  of  modern  days,  who  ever 
lacked  the  wisdom  of  a  child ;  the  deepest  who  never  knew  what 
it  was  to  kneel  in  the  dust  with  bowed  head  and  a  broken  heart." 
— "I  find  a  provision,"  says  Emerson,  "in  the  constitution  of 
the  world,  for  the  writer  or  secretary,  who  is  to  report  the  do- 
ings of  the  miraculous  spirit  of  life  that  everywhere  throbs  and 
works.  His  office  is  a  reception  of  the  facts  into  the  mind,  and 
then  a  selection  of  the  eminent  and  characteristic  experiences." 

(b)  Schiller — "A  hundred  years  may  roll  away,  another  and 
yet  another,  still  from  century  to  century  his  name  shall  be 
celebrated,  and  at  last  there  shall  come  a  festival  when  men  will 
say:  See!  There  was  a  truth  in  his  ideal  anticipations  of  freedom 
and  civilization" — Three  stages  in  Schiller's  development,  (i) 
eudaemonism,  (2)  pessimism,  (3)  altruism.  In  the  two  earlier 
stages  Schiller  was  imder  the  influence  of  Rousseau  (see  The 
Robbers,  a  protest  against  the  social  and  political  forces  of  the 
time ;  also  Ode  to  Rousseau,  the  six  poems  addressed  to  Laura,  and 
Resignation) — Influence  of  Goethe  and  Kant — Opposition  to 
Romanticism — Bias  for  historical  subjects — "His  ever-aspiring 
genius" — The  poem  The  Ideal  an  embodiment  of  Schiller's 
philosophical  and  artistic  creed. 

(c)  In  the  present  outline  only  three  of  Goethe's  works  are 
considered, — Faust,  Wilhehn  Meister,  The  Elective  Affinities.    The 


S4  Teachers  College  Record  [234 

spiritual,  i.  e.,  educational,  significance  of  these  are  indicated 
more  ftilly  in  Chapter  VI .  For  the  present,  attention  may  be 
called  to  several  points  to  be  noted:  (i)  The  true  significance 
and  ethical  import  of  Faust  can  be  realized  only  when  the  two 
parts  are  regarded  as  integral  elements  of  one  organic  whole; 
(2)  The  tendency  to  symbolism;  (3)  Goethe's  conception  of  na- 
ture ;  (4)  Religious  mysticism ;  (5)  The  thirst  for  truth  a  divine 
impulse;  "Ye  shall  not  prevail";  (6)  The  fatalism  of  passion; 
(7)  The  community  of  human  life;  (8)  The  possibility  of  moral 
restoration.  In  these  three  works  Groethe  treats  the  problem 
of  the  individual.  Faust  is  a  glorification  of  individual  culture 
consecrated  to  the  service  of  humanity.  Wilhelm  Meister  is  a 
record  of  the  incidents  in  the  development  of  a  soul  from  imma- 
turity to  a  conscious  recognition  of  a  world  order.  The  Elective 
Affinities  deals  with  the  conflict  between  human  instinct  and  the 
moral  order  of  the  world.  Over  against  the  destructive  work 
of  Rousseau,  by  which  Goethe  was  so  strongly  influenced  in  his 
youth,  stands  the  second  part  of  Faust  as  a  "  triumphal  song  of 
civilization."  Over  against  the  Emile,  with  its  glorification  of 
education  through  isolation,  is  set  the  Wilhelm  Meister,  in  which 
every  individual  is  called  upon  to  cultivate  himself  in  order  that 
he  may  enter  (indeed,  only  through  entering)  into  his  heritage  of 
the  wisdom  of  the  race.  "Wilhelm  Meister,"  writes  Dr.  Harris, 
"utters  the  watchword  of  this  epoch  in  which  we  find  ourselves." 

(d)  Schiller's  early  ethical  ideas  betray  the  influence  of 
Rousseau.  Soon  through  the  study  of  Greek  art  and  life  the 
Rousseau  idea  of  an  unrestrained  life  according  to  nature  gave 
place  to  the  conception  of  an  harmonious,  self-determined  de- 
velopment of  the  personal  life.  Later  Schiller  came  under  the 
influence  of  Kant,  whose  insistence  upon  the  supremacy  of  the 
ideal  over  natural  instincts  made  a  lasting  impression  upon 
him.  "The  deep,  fundamental  ideas  of  the  idealistic  philos- 
ophy," so  he  wrote,  "are  an  abiding  treasure."  He  was  now 
forced,  however,  to  seek  an  adjustment  of  his  ethical  and  his 
aesthetic  creed.  Schiller  develops  his  ideas  in  close  relation  to 
the  problem  of  culture  in  his  Letters  on  the  Aesthetic  Education 
of  Man  (1795) — a  development  of  the  fundamental  idea  of  the 
poem  Die  Kiinstler.  Antagonism  between  the  moral  and  the 
sensuous  is  a  sign  of  imperfect  culture.     Only  through  aesthetic 


235]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       25 

education  can  the  problem  be  solved.  This  perfect  adjustment 
will  one  day  be  attained  in  play, — in  which  man  is  truly  man, 
self-active,  self-determined,  obedient  to  law,  the  sensuous  na- 
ture not  suppressed.  Thus  for  Schiller  artistic  activity  or  the 
play  impidse  mediates  between  the  sensuous  impulse  and  the 
rational  element  in  the  cultured  man,  uniting  the  two  in  har- 
monious co-operation.  Neither  lust  nor  moral  worth  won 
through  obedience  to  the  stem  law  of  duty  is  beautiful.  Beauty 
and  grace  are  not  won  through  the  triumph  of  one,  nor  in  the 
suppression  of  the  other.  The  perfect  woman  and  children 
reveal  the  perfection,  the  original  destiny  of  man.  "Deep 
meaning  oft  lies  hid  in  childish  play."  (In  addition  to  the 
Letters  on  Aesthetic  Education,  see  also,  Die  vier  Weltalter,  Der 
Pilgrim,  Das  Ideal  und  das  Leben,  Das  Mddchen  aus  der  Fremde, 
Der  spielende  Knabe,  Das  Eleusische  Fest,  Lied  von  der  Glocke. 
Francke's  interpretation  of  the  spiritual  significance  of  Schiller's 
ideals  as  embodied  in  his  five  great  historical  dramas  should  be 
noted.) 

References: 

In  addition  to  the  works  of  the  writers  mentioned,  the  follow- 
ing general  references  may  be  added:  (i)  Lessing  and  Herder: 
Erdmann,  History  of  Philosophy;  Francke,  German  Literature  as 
Determined  by  Social  Forces;  Hoffding,  History  of  Modern  Phi- 
losophy, Vol.  II;  Nevison,  Herder  and  his  Times;  RoUeston,  Life 
of  Lessing  (with  bibliography) ;  Scherer,  History  of  German  Litera- 
ture; Sime,  Life  and  Writings  of  Lessing;  Taylor,  Studies  in  Ger- 
man Literature;  Windelband,  History  of  Philosophy.  (2)  Kant: 
In  addition  to  various  histories  of  modem  philosophy,  the  treatises 
of  Adamson,  Caird,  Kuno  Fischer,  Paulsen,  Wallace  and  Watson 
may  be  consulted.  (3)  Goethe  and  Schiller:  Blackie,  The  Wisdom 
of  Goethe;  Boyesen,  Goethe  and  Schiller;  Carlyle,  Critical  and  Mis- 
cellaneous Essays;  Davidson,  Philosophy  of  Faust;  Dowden,  New 
Studies  in  Literature;  English  Goethe  Society  Publications;  Fischer, 
Schiller-Schriften;  Francke,  German  Literature;  Harris,  The  Lesson 
of  Goethe's  Faust;  Hillebrand,  German  Thought;  Lewes,  Life  of 
Goethe;  Nevison,  Life  of  Schiller  (with  bibliography);  Scherer, 
History  of  German  Literature;  Seeley,  Goethe  Reviewed  after  Sixty 
Years;  Sime,  Life  of  Goethe  (with  bibliography) ;  Snider,  Commen- 
tary on  Faust;  Taylor,  Studies  in  German  Literature;  Thomas 
Life  and  Works  of  Friedrich  Schiller;  Ueberweg,  Schiller  als  His- 
toriker  und  Philosoph. 


26  Teachers  College  Record  [236 

Further  problems  for  study : 

I.     Lessing's  reconciliation  of  freedom  and  discipline. 
3.     Lessing's  principles  of  aesthetic  criticism. 

3.  Influence  of  (a)  Lessing  on  Herder,  (b)  Lessing  and  Herder 

on  Goethe. 

4.  Comparison  of  Lessing's  Education  of  the  Human  Race  and 

Temple's  Education  of  the  World  (in  Essays  and  Reviews). 

5.  Kant's  conception  of  a  'person.' 

6.  The  autonomous  nature  of  obligation  in  the  Kantian  Ethics. 

7.  The  individual  and  social  elements  in  Kant's  ethical  theory. 

8.  The  development  of  psychological  theory  from  Rousseau  to 

Kant. 

9.  Goethe's  conception  of  nature. 

10.  Goethe's  ideal  of  culture  as  illustrated  in  Faust  and  Wilhelm 

Meister. 

11.  Schiller's  conception  of  aesthetic  education. 

12.  Schiller's  theory  of  play. 


IV 

ROMANTICISM 

1.  In  the  present  section  Romanticism  is  used  to  cover  a 
twofold  movement:  (i)  an  expansion  of  the  revolutionary  in- 
dividualism and  naturalism,  which  may  be  said  to  have  had  its 
beginnings  in  Rousseau,  (2)  a  reactionary  and  reconstructive 
movement  towards  a  collectivistic  ideal  of  life, — an  ideal  which, 
from  the  philosophical  point  of  view,  found  its  most  organic 
expression  in  the  work  of  Hegel.  The  development  of  Roman- 
ticism— as  designating  a  particular  period  of  time — may  thus 
be  said  to  extend  from  the  emergence  of  Rousseau  in  1749  to 
the  death  of  Hegel  in  1831.  These  dates  will  serve  our  present 
purpose  as  convenient  marks  of  identification.  The  second  of 
the  tendencies  noted  above  was  not  wholly  subsequent  to  the 
first;  it  was,  perhaps,  in  large  measure.  Frequently,  however, 
the  two  tendencies  are  to  be  found  side  by  side  in  the  writings 
of  the  single  author. 

2.  As  is  implied  in  the  preceding  section,  Romanticism,  in 
the  cotirse  of  its  evolution,  was  intimately  related  to  and  in- 
fluenced by  the  individualistic  naturalism  of  Rousseau  and  the 
idealistic  movement  begun  by  Kant,  more  fully  developed  by 
Fichte  and  Schelling,  and  carried  to  its  completion  by  Hegel. 


237]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       27 

Rousseau's  naturalism  and  individualism  embodied  for  the  men 
of  his  generation  the  conviction  (i)  of  the  worth  and  rights  of 
man  as  man  and  (2)  of  the  ministry  of  nature  to  the  human 
spirit.  This  first  element  of  Romanticism,  its  tendency  to 
naturalistic  individualism,  coming  in  contact  with  the  idealistic 
movement  with  its  organic  modes  of  thought,  was  modified  and 
transformed  in,  at  least,  a  threefold  manner, — in  its  relation  to 
(i)  man,  (2)  nature,  (3)  the  Absolute.  In  place  of  the  atomism 
of  an  earlier  day  there  was  evolved  a  conception  according  to 
which  the  self  and  the  world,  civilization  and  nature,  the  divine 
and  the  human,  became  parts  of  one  organic  spiritual  life  or 
process. 

3.  The  individualistic  and  naturalistic  aspect  of  Romanti- 
cism is  evidenced  by  (i)  the  reaction  against  social  and  political 
authority,  the  hatred  of  tyranny  of  whatever  kind,  the  dualism 
of  nattu-e  and  culture;  (2)  a  high  development  of  imaginative 
sensibility,  frequently  bordering  on  sentimentalism;  (3)  an 
exaltation  of  feeling  as  fimdamental  and  supreme,  to  be  recog- 
nized in  the  conviction  that  intuition  should  supply  the 
deficiencies  of  reason,  that  religion  is  based  on  feeling,  that 
impulse  and  '  natural  instincts '  are  the  surest  guides  to  truly 
artistic  action;  in  the  lyrical  and  personal  note  of  literature; 
in  the  'storm  and  stress'  mood,  with  its  melancholy,  its  ex- 
aggerated self -consciousness,  its  frequent  tendency  towards  the 
morbid;  (4)  a  melancholy  love  of  nature,  opposing  nature  to 
man;  preferring  the  solitary,  the  wild,  the  terrible,  the  mysteri- 
ous ;  idealizing  the  simple,  unconventional  ways  of  childhood ; 
(5)  a  revolt  against  classical  traditions  and  methods,  demanding 
and  suggesting  joy  in  emotion,  in  color,  sound,  movement,  the 
sense  of  freedom,  rather  than  in  classical  precision  of  thought 
or  form;  (6)  a  passionate  aspiration,  finding  expressing  in  the 
assurance  of  something  nobler  and  truer  than  the  present;  in 
the  desire  for  a  free  and  harmonious  development  of  human 
nature;  in  a  vague  nature-worship,  a  mystical  pantheism,  a 
yearning,  human  tenderness,  a  longing  for  intellectual  excite- 
ment, and  the  desire  to  penetrate  the  unknown  and  the  unseen, 
for  beauty  hatmted  by  strangeness  and  mystery ;  in  a  passion  for 
the  past, — ^the  romantic  past  of  myth,  of  legend,  of  chivalry. 

4.  This  individualistic  phase  of  Romanticism,  with  its  as- 


a  8  Teachers  College  Record  [238 

sertion  of  the  rights  of  man,  its  revolt  against  the  traditional 
and  conventional;  its  exaltation  of  feeling  as  supreme,  its  de- 
velopment of  imaginative  sensibility,  its  self -consciousness,  its 
egotism,  its  melancholy ;  its  contempt  for  the  present,  its  passion 
for  the  past,  its  renascence  of  wonder,  of  mystery,  of  chivalry; 
its  universalism  rather  than  its  nationalism ;  its  passionate  con- 
viction of  the  possible  harmonies  between  the  truly  natural 
man  and  the  life  of  nature,  of  the  beauty  of  childhood,  and  the 
dignity  of  the  solitary  peasant;  its  nature-worship  and  its 
pantheism;  its  belief  in  a  nobler  and  better  form  of  life  some- 
where beyond  this  present  real, — all  these  tended  to  carry  it 
beyond  itself  to  a  more  spiritual  and  idealistic  point  of  view, — 
to  a  view  of  the  world  and  life,  indeed,  which  made  Romanticism 
complementary  to  Idealism  in  initiating  much  that  is  best  in 
the  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  of  the  present.  Certain  of 
the  more  important  factors  making  for  what  was  spoken  of  in  a 
preceding  section  as  the  tendency  in  Romanticism  towards  a 
collectivistic  ideal  of  life  may  be  briefly  noted:  (i)  The  gradual 
prevalence  of  organic  over  mechanical  modes  of  thought. 
(Compare,  e.g.,  Herder's  conception  of  the  relation  of  nature  to 
man;  Kant's  doctrine  of  experience  as  an  organic  unity  with 
reason  as  its  constituent  factor,  leading  to  an  idealism  which 
finds  in  the  manifold  forms  of  human  self-expression  the  mani- 
festation of  free,  spiritual  life  and  purpose;  Fichte's  doctrine 
of  the  will  as  fundamental,  and  the  medium  of  its  realization,  the 
common  life  of  man ;  Goethe's  belief  in  the  divine  immanence  in 
nature  and  humanity ;  Schleiermacher's  conception  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  organic  relation  to  the  world;  Hegel's  conception  of 
human  institutions  as  forming  one  vast  spiritual  organism  whose 
ultimate  goal  is  the  realization  of  the  kingdom  of  God.)  (2) 
The  resultant  reconstruction  of  the  doctrine  of  personality. 
The  freedom  and  the  realization  of  the  individual  were  no 
longer  conceived  of  as  the  unhindered  expression  of  natural 
instinct,  but  as  spiritual  achievements,  won  through  self- 
limitation  in  the  presence  of  ideal  ends.  (3)  As  a  result  of  the 
return  to  nature  in  literature  and  life,  the  prevalence  of  the 
organic  mode  of  thought,  the  deepening  of  imaginative  sensi- 
bility, not  only  did  man  draw  near  to  nature,  but  nature  was 
brought  into  a  more  living  \mity  with  the  human  spirit,  and  to 


239]    ^^  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel        29 

man  was  disclosed  nature,  not  as  a  mere  alien  something,  an 
unknown  thing-in-itself,  but  that  in  which  intelligence  finds  its 
object,  a  reflection  of  its  own  activity,  a  medium  through  which 
human  activities  reveal  themselves,  a  source  of  beauty  and  de- 
light, a  ministry  to  spiritual  needs.  (4)  As  a  further  resultant 
of  the  organic  mode  of  thought  meeting  with  the  Romantic 
passion  for  the  past,  its  wistftd  yearning  for  the  days  gone  by, 
coupled  with  its  demand  for  closer  vision  and  clearer  knowl- 
edge, the  past  was  brought  into  more  vital  relation  to  the 
present,  and  this  in  turn  gave  rise  to  an  appreciation  of  the  con- 
tinuity of  phenomena  in  science,  in  aesthetics  and  literature,  in 
politics,  in  history,  philosophy  and  theology.  (Concerning  the 
position  of  evolutionary  theory  during  this  period,  see  Osborne, 
From  the  Greeks  to  Darwin;  Royce,  The  Spirit  of  Modern  Philo- 
sophy, chap,  ix ;  Sully,  art.  Evolutionm.  Encyclopcedia  Britannica.) 
(5)  The  increasing  fear  of  the  tyranny  of  mere  "reason,"  the 
reaction  due  to  the  social  and  political  crisis  in  German  life,  had 
not  only  excited  the  feeling  of  nationality,  but  had  quickened 
it  into  a  passion,  especially  in  such  minds  as  Fichte,  Schiller, 
Schleiermacher,  Amdt,  Komer  and  Uliland.  The  work  of 
these  in  turn  had  its  foiindations  in  those  ideals  of  life  and  duty 
enforced  by  Lessing,  Herder,  Kant  and  Goethe.  (6)  The 
liberating  influence  in  the  spiritual  life  of  Germany  of  the  study 
of  Greek  literature  and  art;  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton.  (7) 
Along  with  the  organic  mode  of  thought  there  came  as  one  of 
its  manifestations  a  new  conception  of  the  divine  immanence  in 
the  world,  compelling  "all  new  successions  to  the  forms  they 
wear,"  investing  all  things  in  nature,  in  art,  in  life,  with  a  sense 
of  the  infinite,  the  unfathomable,  the  wonderful,  yet  ever  with 
the  possibility  of  familiar  comradeship  between  them  and  the 
human  soul.  "I  can  no  longer,"  said  Lessing,  "be  satisfied 
with  the  conception  of  a  God  out  of  the  world,"  and  Goethe: 

"Whom  I  own  for  Father,  God,  Creator, 
Holds  nature  in  himself,  himself  in  nature , 
And  in  his  kindly  arms  embraced,  the  whole 
Doth  live  and  move  by  his  pervading  soul." 

5.     The  more  prominent  members  of  what  is  strictly  known 
as  the  '  Romantic  School '  were  August  Schlegel  (1767-1845),  and 


3oJ  ^N    ;'•';  Teachers  College  Record  [240 

his  brother,  Friedrich  Schlegel  (177 2- 182 9),  who  by  their 
critical  writings  did  much  to  strengthen  the  Romantic  tendency ; 
Ludwig  Tieck  (1773-1853),  the  dramatist  and  man  of  letters; 
Novalis  (1772-1801),  and  Schelling  (1765-1854),  its  typical 
philosophers;  Schleiermacher  (i  768-1834),  the  philosophic 
theologian  of  the  movement.  Friedrich  Schlegel  held  that  "the 
French  Revolution,  Fichte's  Wissenschaftslehre,  and  Goethe's 
Wilhelm  Meister  are  the  greatest  tendencies  of  the  age.  The 
man  who  takes  offence  at  this  juxtaposition,  to  whom  no  Revo- 
lution can  appear  great  which  is  not  noisy  and  material,  has  not 
yet  risen  to  the  high  and  wide  standpoint  of  the  history  of  man." 
(For  an  account  of  Romanticism  in  its  critical  and  literary  as- 
pects especially,  but  still  as  influencing  philosophic  specula- 
tion profoundly,  see  Francke,  German  Literature;  Omond,  The 
Romantic  Triumph;  Scherer,  German  Literature;  also,  Haym, 
Die  romantische  Schule;  Hettner,  Die  romantische  Schule; 
Schmidt,  Geschichte  der  Romantik;  also,  Geschichte  der  deutschen 
Litter atur  seit  Les sings  Tod.) 

6.  In  the  study  of  the  philosophy  of  Romanticism  the 
genesis  of  the  romantic  Weltanschauung  may  be  discovered  in 
(i)  a  certain  dissatisfaction,  felt  by  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  others 
who  were  fimdamentally  followers  of  Kant,  with  the  Kantian 
view  of  experience  as  a  whole.  Through  the  Kantian  analysis, 
it  was  believed,  the  living  unity  of  the  spiritual  life  had  not  been 
preserved.  On  the  other  hand,  the  deepest  element  in  the 
Kantian  system  was  the  thought  of  synthesis,  of  self-activity  as 
the  essence  of  spirit.  The  question  was  asked,  most  persuasively 
by  Fichte,  Shotdd  not  this  ftmdamental  element,  the  spontaneity, 
the  synthetic  activity  of  spirit,  be  made  the  point  of  departure 
in  philosophical  construction?  Would  not  atomism,  isolation, 
externality  disappear,  if  all  things  in  the  world  of  nature  (Schell- 
ing) and  in  the  life  of  man  (Fichte)  could  be  shown  as  mani- 
festations of  one  Life  or  Spirit  operative  in  them?  (2)  The 
revival  of  the  study  of  Spinoza,  Leibnitz,  Bruno,  Bohme,  who 
inspired  such  as  Herder,  Goethe,  Schelling,  Schleiermacher  and 
Novalis  with  an  enthusiasm  for  nature  and  the  world  conceived 
as  an  organic  whole.  (3)  The  belief  that  truth  is  revealed  not 
in  reason  alone,  but  in  the  feelings  and  intuitions  of  the  human 
soul.     (4)  The  development  of  the  sciences  and  the  growth  of 


241  ]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       31 

the  idea  of  the  unity  of  nature.  [Important  names  are  Lavoisier 
(1743-1794),  Humboldt  (i 769-1859),  Goethe  (1749-1832)].  (5) 
The  new  conception  of  history.  (6)  The  development  of  a  new 
content  in  the  religious  consciousness.  (7)  The  growth  of  a 
new  and  more  spiritual  type  of  art  criticism  and  interpretation. 
(8)  The  growing  disinclination  clearly  to  distinguish  between 
aesthetic,  philosophic  and  religious  ideas.  Novalis,  for  example, 
declared  that  the  separation  between  poetry  and  philosophy  is 
superficial  and  ingenious. 

7.  For  Schelling's  relation  to  Fichte  and  Hegel,  see  Chapter 
V.  In  a  study  of  his  relation  to  Romanticism,  note:  (i)  His  work 
a  spirit — an  outcome  of  poetical  intuition ;  a  tendency  of  thought 
rather  than  a  system.  (2)  Nature  not,  as  for  Fichte,  a  mere 
abstract  limit  to  the  infinite  striving  of  spirit,  but  the  mani- 
festation of  one  formative  energy  or  soul.  Nature  and  spirit 
complementary  parts  of  a  unitary  process.  "The  system  of 
nature  is  at  the  same  time  the  system  of  our  spirit.  Nature  is 
visible  spirit ;  spirit  is  invisible  nature."  (3)  His  attempt  at  the 
reconciliation  of  opposites  or  differences  within  nature  and 
mind.  As  in  nature  are  exhibited  the  dynamic  stages  or  pro- 
cesses in  the  struggle  of  spirit  towards  consciousness,  so  in  the 
world  of  mind  are  disclosed  the  manifold  stages  through  which 
self -consciousness,  with  its  opposites  and  reconciliations,  struggles 
towards  its  ideals.  (4)  His  symbolism,  and  his  application  of 
organic  conceptions  to  the  various  levels  of  existence.  [Com- 
pare, also,  the  work  of  his  disciples:  Cams  (i 789-1 869),  Oersted 
(1777-1851),  Oken  (1779-1851),  Steffens  (1773-1845).] 

8.  (a)  In  the  study  of  the  work  of  Schleiermacher  there 
should  be  noted:  (i)  Its  union  of  critical  reflection,  appreciation 
of  historical  method,  philosophic  breadth,  moral  intensity,  and 
devotional  spirit.  (2)  Its  adherence,  for  the  most  part,  to  the 
general  world-view  of  Romanticism,  which  attempts  to  grasp 
in  one  homogeneous  form  the  entire  content  of  life.  (3)  Its 
theory  that  philosophy  finds  the  best  guarantee  of  its  truth  in 
the  religious  conviction  it  engenders.  (4)  The  idea  of  God,  as 
the  unity  of  thought  and  being,  underlying  human  knowledge 
as  its  presupposition.  (5)  Its  conviction  that  the  innermost  life 
of  man  must  be  lived  in  feeling,  and  that  this,  and  this  alone  can 
bring  man  into  immediate  relation  to  the  Highest.     Religion 


32  Teachers  College  Record  [242 

consists  in  the  immediate  consciousness  that  all  finite  things 
exist  in  and  through  the  infinite:  all  things  temporal  in  and 
through  the  eternal.  (6)  Since  religion  is  conceived  as  that 
which  affords  the  highest  point  of  view,  ("giving  to  life  its 
mxisic")  or  rather  as  the  fundamental  mode  of  our  participa- 
tion in  the  spiritual  life,  it  follows  that  intellectual,  moral  and 
aesthetic  culture  can  attain  their  perfection  only  when  they 
lead  back  to  living  in  the  immediate  feeling  of  the  infinite  as 
that  which  surrounds  and  supports  all  finite  individualities,  all 
finite  existence.  It  is  not  to  be  imderstood  that  this  religious 
feeling  is  purely  passive,  or  cBSthetic  religiousness:  rather 
its  true  form  is  teleological  religiousness  whose  highest  form  is 
labor  for  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  (7)  Its 
emphasis  on  the  positive  significance  of  the  individual.  Each 
man  should  express  humanity  in  his  own  way  and  with  a  unique 
blending  of  its  elements. 

(b)  Schleiermacher's  theory  of  nature  and  ethics:  (i)  Schleier- 
macher  recognizes,  first  of  all,  an  antithesis  between  the  real 
and  ideal,  organism  and  intelligence,  nature  and  reason.  The 
opposition  is,  however,  not  absolute,  since  in  life  both  elements 
are  tmited.  Underlying  nature  is  universal  reason  as  organizing 
principle.  Attaining  to  consciousness  in  man  Reason  finds  itself 
partly  in  conflict,  partly  in  harmony  with  nature.  There  is 
always  a  relative  harmony.  The  end  and  aim  of  human  thought 
and  activity  is  to  lessen  the  extent  of  this  opposition  between 
man  and  the  world.  Consciousness  itself,  with  its  imion  of 
antithetic  elements,  is  proof  that  the  reconciliation  is  not  hope- 
less. Back  of  nature  and  mind  is  a  unity,  a  life,  the  common 
ground  of  nature  and  humanity,  the  principle  of  knowledge, 
the  presupposition  of  the  ethical  life  of  man,  a  life  whose  best 
witness  is  the  religious  consciousness.  (2)  Starting  with  the 
(apparent)  dualism  of  ego  and  non-ego,  Schleiermacher  con- 
ceives the  life  of  man  to  consist  in  their  interaction,  its  infinite 
goal,  their  Lnterpenetration.  The  ego  is  body  and  sotil  in  one. 
The  organization  of  the  self  has  its  rational  aspect:  the  reason, 
its  organic  element.  Every  extension  of  consciousness  is  higher 
life:  individuality  increases  through  increasing  participation  in 
the  life  of  nature  and  humanity.  The  metaphysical  basis  of 
the  ethical  life  was  noted  above,  namely,  the  ultimate  imity  of 


243]    ^^  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       33 

nature  and  reason ;  its  psychological  basis  is  found  in  the  im- 
pulse of  reason  to  organize  nature — ^the  human  body  as  well  as 
outer  nature — as  the  instrument  of  its  purposes.  Thus  ethical 
development  stands  to  nature  in  the  relation  of  reciprocal  action. 
The  ethical  process  is  twofold:  (i)  an  organizing  principle, 
through  which  man  attempts  to  make  himself  master  of  nature, 
(ii)  a  symbolizing  activity  through  which  he  seeks  to  give  ex- 
pression to  his  spiritual  life.  Thus  for  Schleiermacher  the  en- 
tire development  of  human  culture  is  a  part  of  the  ethical 
development  of  man.  The  organizing  activity  produces  the  forms 
of  property  and  of  human  intercourse:  the  symbolizing  activity 
gives  rise  to  the  poetic  and  artistic  expressions  of  feeling,  and 
the  manifold  forms  of  science:  the  united  products  constitute 
the  triumphs  or  achievements  of  humanity  as  reason,  in  a  word, 
civilization,  and  thus  spiritual  intercourse  and  the  social  con- 
ditions of  moral  action.  The  individual,  as  an  individualization 
of  universal  reason,  attains  moral  worth  according  as  he  posi- 
tively manifests  in  a  distinct  and  peculiar  way  common  human 
nature.  This  unique  expression,  this  fulfilment  of  the  moral 
function,  is  not,  however,  produced  in  isolation,  but  only  through 
participation  in  the  various  forms  of  the  ethical  life, — ^the  home, 
the  school,  society,  the  state,  and  the  church.  These  are  the 
instruments  or  organs  which  Reason  has  found  to  minister  most 
efficiently  to  the  higher  life  of  man.  The  individual  makes  his 
moral  problem  in  the  actual  relationships  of  society.  But  "with- 
out love,  there  is  no  culture."  "In  virtue  of  his  [Schleier- 
macher's],  fine  understanding  of  Nature,"  says  Hoffding,  "and  of 
the  conditions  of  personal  life  he  takes  his  place  as  one  of  the 
leading  spirits  in  the  Romanticist  circle." 


References: 

In  addition  to  the  works  of  the  authors  and  references  cited  in 
the  section,  and  the  various  histories  of  philosophy,  see  Bosanquet, 
A  History  of  Esthetic ;  Brandes,  The  Romantic  Movement  in  Germany; 
Coar,  Studies  in  Germ.an  Literature  in  the  Nineteenth  Century; 
Francke.  History  of  German  Literature;  Omond,  The  Romantic  Tri- 
umph; Pfleiderer,  Development  of  Theology  since  Kant;  Royce, 
The  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy;  Watson,  Schelling's  Transcen- 
dental Idealism;  Wvindt,  Ethical  Systems. 


34  Teachers  College  Record  [244 

Further  problems  for  study: 

I.     Goethe's  relation  to  Romanticism. 


The  Romantic  element  in  the  philosophy  of  Fichte. 
Schelling's  interpretation  of  nature. 
Contributions  of  Romanticism  to  ethical  theory- 
The  relation  of  Romanticism  to  the  Naturalism  of  Rousseau. 
Novalis. 

Schleiermacher's  concepion  of  individuality. 
The  individual  and  social  tendencies  in  the  Romantic  move- 
ment. 


FROM  KANT  TO  HEGEL:  THE  IDEALISTIC  INTERPRETA- 
TION OF  NATURE  AND  HISTORY 

I.  The  progress  of  philosophy  consists  not  so  much  in 
stages  of  discovery  as  in  a  gradual  process  of  absorption  of 
earlier  problems  into  problems  more  complex  and  more  inclu- 
sive. The  wonderful  vitality  of  the  philosophic  movement 
dominated  by  Fichte,  Schelling  and  Hegel  was  due  to  three 
causes:  (i)  the  legacy  of  the  Critical  philosophy,  (2)  a  favorable 
environment,  (3)  the  constructive  insight  of  these  three  leaders. 
Although  it  seems  just  to  maintain  that  the  legitimate  outcome 
of  Kant's  theory  of  knowledge  is  that  outlined  in  Chapter  III, 
sec.  5,  yet  Kant  was  never  entirely  able  to  maintain  himself  in 
this  position.  A  dualistic  and  mechanical  view  of  knowledge 
stni  hatmts  his  system:  indeed,  in  several  places,  notably  in 
his  Refutation  of  Idealism,  inserted  in  the  second  edition  of  the 
Critique,  he  advances  arguments  amounting  to  a  flat  denial  of 
Idealism,  in  making  which  he  strangely  enough  gives  up  his 
own  position,  namely,  the  organic  relation  of  subject  and  object. 
To  overthrow  the  assumption  of  the  independent  existence  of 
subject  and  object,  of  mind  and  nature,  constitutes  the  peculiar 
problem  of  Fichte  and  Hegel  from  the  epistemological  point  of 
view.  No  one,  of  course,  will  deny  that  sensations  are  due  to 
the  action  of  objects  on  the  organism.  Fichte  and  Hegel  main- 
tain that  on  Kant's  own  showing  these  objects  are  themselves 
determined  by  intelligence.  Neither  as  object  of  knowledge, 
nor  as  existence,  therefore,  are  subject  and  object  unrelated  to 
each  other:  the  subject  has  no  nature  of  its  own  independently 


245]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       35 

of  the  object,  nor  the  object  independently  of  the  subject.  The 
assumption  of  the  independent  existence  of  subject  and  object 
is  very  natural  for  the  reason  that,  when  we  begin  to  explain 
knowledge,  we  already  have  knowledge.  But  in  accounting 
for  the  origin  of  knowledge  we  have  no  right  to  start  from  the 
independent  existence  of  subject  and  object  unless  it  can  be 
shown  that  such  independent  existence  of  subject  and  object 
can  be  known.  When  Kant  asks,  therefore,  "By  what  means 
should  our  activity  of  knowledge  be  aroused  into  activity  but 
by  objects?"  he  neglects  the  significance  of  his  own  position, 
namely,  that  neither  object  nor  subject  exists  for  knowledge 
prior  to  knowledge,  and  that  to  ask  how  the  subject  should  be 
aroused  to  activity  by  the  object  is  to  ask  how  a  non-existent 
object  should  act  upon  a  non-existent  subject.  In  seeking  for 
an  answer  to  the  question,  What  is  contributed  by  the  subject 
and,  What  comes  from  the  object  ?  the  previous  question  must 
be  answered,  Is  any  such  separation  of  subject  and  object  per- 
missible? If  there  is  no  known  subject  which  does  not  imply 
a  known  object,  if,  in  other  words,  both  subject  and  object  are 
the  result  of  a  unitary  process  of  experience,  it  follows  that  the 
element  belonging  to  the  one  cannot  be  separated  from  the 
element  belonging  to  the  other. 

Here,  then,  we  find  the  essential  contribution  of  the  post- 
Kantian  epistemology.  Kant,  though  apparently  starting  from 
the  opposition  of  subject  and  object,  pointed  the  way  to  the 
overthrow  of  this  position.  He,  however,  could  never  wholly 
get  away  from  the  position  that  while  the  known  object  does  not 
exist  apart  from  the  subject,  the  real  object  does  so  exist. 
Fichte  and  Hegel,  on  the  contrary,  would  remove  the  incon- 
sistency by  insisting  upon  the  logical  implication  of  the  position 
that  for  knowledge  the  object  is  not  an  independent  existence 
but  one  in  and  for  a  conscious  subject.  If  for  knowledge  the  self 
and  the  world,  spirit  and  nature,  exist  for  each  other,  then  as 
existences  they  are  not  independent  of  each  other.  For,  since 
spatial  and  temporal  relations,  and  the  categories  which  de- 
termine objectivity  have  a  meaning  only  within  knowledge  or 
experience,  it  follows  that  they  can  no  more  belong  to  the  sub- 
ject than  to  the  object,  but  only  to  the  subject  in  so  far  as  there 
has  arisen  for  it  the  consciousness  of  an  object  determinable 


36  Teachers  College  Record  [246 

iinder  these  relations.  The  object  has  no  existence  for  the 
subject  except  as  the  subject  distinguishes  it  from  and  yet  re- 
lates it  to  itself.  Whatever  the  object  is,  it  is  for  a  subject,  and 
any  other  object  is  a  fiction  of  abstraction.  If  this  be  granted,  it 
follows  that  there  can  be  no  opposition  between  the  matter 
and  the  form  of  knowledge:  no  opposition,  i.e.,  between  a 
matter  which  comes  from  the  object,  and  a  form  contributed 
by  the  subject.  This  is,  in  brief,  the  contention  of  Fichte 
and  Hegel  in  their  attempt  to  remove  the  contradiction  in  the 
epistemology  of  Kant.  In  other  words,  for  them,  the  science 
of  knowing  and  the  science  of  being  are  organically  one  and 
inseparable. 

2.  The  investigation  of  Kant  resulted  in  the  discovery  of 
the  self,  or  ego,  as  the  supreme  condition  of  our  intellectual  and 
moral  experience.  Starting  from  this  principle  of  unity  Fichte 
(i 762-1814),  followed  by  Schelling,  made  it,  as  absolute,  their 
metaphysical  principle.  For  Fichte,  as  for  Hegel,  philosophy 
means  the  systematic  development  of  thought  from  its  most 
abstract  phase  to  the  wealth  and  fulness  of  real  existence.  His 
task,  as  he  conceived  it,  was  to  bring  into  organic  connection 
the  disjecta  membra  of  the  Kantian  system.  The  connection  be- 
tween mind  and  nature,  suggested  by  Kant,  pointed  to  a  common 
root  of  both,  an  organic  unity  with  many  antitheses:  that  the 
objective  tmiverse  of  nature  and  history,  in  that  it  is  intelligible, 
is  the  working  of  an  immanent  Reason  to  which  man's  con- 
sciousness is  akin.  Fichte's  problem  was  ever  the  determina- 
tion of  the  relation  between  reason  as  practical  and  reason  as 
cognitive.  This  idealism,  begun  by  Kant  and  Fichte,  and 
carried  to  its  fuller  completion  by  Schelling  and  Hegel,  was 
destined  to  raise  the  modem  mind  to  a  higher  consciousness, 
blending  as  it  did  "the  realism  of  the  ancient  world  and  the 
inwardness  and  ideality  of  the  Christian  religion." 

3.  A  brief  outline  summary  of  the  more  important  features 
in  Fichte's  teaching  may  be  given  as  follows : 

(a)  Theory  of  knowledge:  (i)  The  task  of  philosophy  is  the 
explanation  of  experience.  Within  experience  we  find  'ideas 
of  things.'  With  dogmatism  we  may  deduce  the  idea  from  the 
thing,  or,  with  idealism,  the  thing  from  the  idea.  The  individual's 
world-conception  (for  the  acceptance  of  either  method  involves 


247]    ^^  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       37 

such  a  conception)  thus  depends  on  what  kind  of  man  he  is. 
(2)  By  the  ' thing-in-itself '  Kant  meant  to  assert  nothing  more 
than  the  unity  and  absolute  objectivity  which  the  mind  gives 
in  perception  to  its  own  creations.  In  experience  object  and 
subject  imply  each  other.  The  term  object  does  not,  indeed 
cannot,  take  us  beyond  the  limits  of  the  mind.  (3)  A  science 
of  knowledge  (the  science  of  sciences)  must  be  based  upon  one 
single  fimdamental  principle,  one  which  cannot  be  proved; 
otherwise  it  would  be  worthless  as  the  starting-point  of  a  system. 
The  only  absolute  proof  of  such  a  principle  or  hypothesis  is  to 
be  found  in  what  it  will  do  for  us,  and  "everything  depends  upon 
the  attempt."  Our  first  inquiry,  then,  is  for  the  unconditioned 
fimdamental  principle  which  is  to  express  that  deed-act — the 
activity  not  occurring  among  the  empirical  determinations  of 
our  consciousness  (since  it  is  impossible  so  to  occur),  for  the 
reason  that  it  is  the  basis  of  all  consciousness  and  first  and  alone 
makes  consciousness  possible.  (4)  In  interrogating  conscious- 
ness we  find  an  ego,  and  a  non-ego;  but  the  latter  is  found  only 
in  virtue  of  the  spirittial  activity  of  the  ego  or  self.  Our  first 
principle  is,  therefore,  "the  ego  posits  itself,"  and  the  second, 
' '  the  ego  posits  a  non-ego. ' '  Through  the  method  of  antithetical 
connection  a  third  principle  emerges  "the  ego  posits  a  limited 
ego  in  opposition  to  a  limited  non-ego."  It  is  not  of  course  to 
be  supposed  that  Fichte  held  that  the  special  content  of  experi- 
ence might  be  deduced  from  general  principles.  If  we  forget  this 
"in  our  endeavor  to  explain  the  whole  of  life,  we  shall  lose  life 
itself"  (see,  On  the  Nature  of  a  Scholar).  For  Fichte,  then,  the 
fundamental  principle  of  a  theory  of  knowledge  is  "there  is 
nothing  in  the  ego  which  is  not  the  product  of  the  ego's  own 
activity";  everything  in  consciousness  is  due  to  a  unitary, 
spiritual  activity,  a  conception  based  on  the  essential  inward- 
ness and  validity  of  the  spiritual  life.  Ultimately  all  reality 
must  be  referred  to  self-consciousness.  Man's  innermost  es- 
sence is  in  willing  and  working.  All  our  presentations  are  con- 
ditioned by  our  will.  Being  is  life,  inner,  active  life.  (5)  To 
the  question,  "Why  does  the  ego  posit  a  non-ego  within  itself?" 
no  answer  can  be  given  from  the  theoretical  point  of  view. 
Apart  from  the  demands  of  our  moral  consciousness  it  remains 
inexplicable.     In   the   moral   consciousness   alone   is   the   true 


38  Teachers  College  Record  [248 

significance  of  self -activity,  the  world  of  nature  and  of  humanity 
disclosed. 

(6)  Theory  of  Ethics:  (i)  As  in  the  sphere  of  cognition,  so  in 
that  of  practice,  the  conception  of  the  original  activity  of  the 
self  is  fundamental.  The  moral  consciousness  reveals  effort, 
struggle,  aspiration  towards  ideal  ends,  as  the  supreme  good. 
Activity,  struggle,  aspiration  presuppose  limitation,  resistance. 
There  would  be  no  moral  life  without  a  system  of  limits,  of  ob- 
jects to  encounter,  of  resistances  to  overcome.  No  activity,  no 
world:  no  world  to  overcome,  no  self-realization!  Nature  is 
the  material  of  duty.  (2)  Activity  at  first  directed  through  in- 
stinct upon  objects  becomes  for  a  time  dependent  upon  them. 
The  activity,  being  infinite  and  therefore  unsatisfied  with  finite 
objects,  quickens  reflection  and  reflection  liberates  the  activity. 
Thus  is  freedom  possible.  Natural  wants  may  thus  become 
instrumental  to  the  attainment  of  freedom.  Thus  in  the 
ethical  law,  "Every  particular  action  should  form  part  of  a 
series  which  leads  the  individual  to  complete  spiritual  freedom," 
are  reason  and  sense  adjusted.  (3)  In  that  the  essential  fact  in 
morality  consists  in  the  submission  of  the  will  to  the  moral  law, 
Fichte  thinks  of  being  as  the  moral  nature  forced  to  build  itself 
a  natural  order  in  which  it  may  yield  obedience  to  the  moral 
law,  and  to  become  self -separative  in  a  community  of  ethical  in- 
dividualities, through  whom  the  moral  virtues  may  be  realized. 
Thus  the  existence  of  other  egos  and  of  a  world  in  which  these 
egos  may  act  is  "the  necessary  condition  of  a  consciousness  of 
freedom."  The  outer  world,  then,  the  not -self,  is  just  as  large 
as  the  individual's  spiritual  activity  makes  it. 

(c)  The  Absolute  for  Fichte  is  the  moral  consciousness  uni- 
versalized and  conceived  as  absolute  moral  activity  from  which 
originate  nature  and  society.  Fichte's  significance  consists  in 
the  recognition  of  rational  self-activity  as  the  basis  of  a  con- 
ception of  the  world,  of  the  validity  and  supremacy  of  the 
inner,  spiritual  life.  Where  he  fails  is  in  his  neglect  to  attempt 
an  explanation  of  the  relation  between  his  '  schema '  of  spiritual 
evolution  and  the  historical  and  the  actual  evolution  of  nature 
and  humanity.  For  his  neglect  of  the  riches  of  intelligence  as 
disclosed  in  the  development  of  nature  and  history,  Fichte's 
thought  has  been  accused  of  being  purely  subjective  idealism — 


249]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       39 

a  charge  not  wholly  without  foundation.  Support  from  ex- 
perience to  the  essential  principle  of  his  idealism  was  to  be 
brought  from  nature  by  Schelling,  from  history  by  Hegel.  (See 
also,  Royce,  The  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy,  pp.  152-153.) 

4.  Though  strongly  influenced  by  the  Fichtean  idealism, 
Schelling 's  permanent  tendency  was  to  give  to  the  method  of 
Fichte  a  more  objective  application  and  to  unite  with  it  the 
more  realistic  view  of  existence  gained  from  his  study  of  Spinoza. 
With  the  Romanticists  generally,  Schelling  felt  that  Fichte  had 
endangered  the  reality  of  the  world  of  nature  by  conceiving  it  as 
merely  an  abstract  limit  to  the  infinite  striving  of  spirit.  Nature 
rather  is  a  imity,  a  manifold  for  ordinary  perception,  but  for 
reason  not  merely  stuff  for  thought  but  a  imity,  the  manifesta- 
tion of  one  formative  energy,  the  radiance  of  a  divine  mani- 
festation. It  is  a  realization  of  spirit:  its  outward  forms  are 
not  imposed  from  without,  but  the  outcome  of  an  inner  teleology. 
It  is  self -forming,  the  outcome  of  the  same  spirit,  though  un- 
conscious, of  which  we  are  aware  in  self -consciousness.  Nature 
and  spirit  are  complementary  parts  of  a  unitary  process.  Schel- 
ling, accordingly,  attempted  to  supplement  Fichte  by  exhibiting 
nature  as  an  intelligible  system,  as  a  function  or  process  of 
intelligence  towards  self -consciousness  as  its  necessary  goal,  i.e., 
to  show  its  essential  oneness  with  the  ego  as  intelligent,  and  not, 
as  Descartes  had  done,  as  the  "dead  antithesis  of  conscious 
thought."  Having  as  the  animating  principle  of  his  thought 
(for  him  the  inner  type,  indeed,  of  all  things)  the  notion  of  the 
reconciliation  of  opposites  or  differences,  in  his  attempt  to  adjust 
the  changes  of  nature  with  the  conception  of  unity  in  productive 
force,  Schelling  reaches  the  notion  of  duality,  or  polar  opposition 
through  which  nature  manifests  itself  in  a  dynamical  series  of 
changes — matter,  light,  and  organism.  And  just  as  in  nature 
through  these  processes  the  spirit  struggles  to  consciousness 
(compare  the  theor}^  of  Leibnitz),  so  in  the  world  of  mind  are 
disclosed  the  stages  through  which  self-consciousness  with  its 
inevitable  antagonisms  and  reconciliations  struggles  towards 
ideal  forms.  Nature  is  no  alien  power:  the  object  is  intelligible 
because  it  is  of  like  essence  with  the  subject.  Nature  is  spirit 
manifest.  Schelling's  inquir}-,  therefore,  is  directed  towards  a 
comprehension  of  the  unity  of  the  world  under  the  one  principle 


40  Teachers  College  Record  [250 

of  organic  development.  One  further  point  should  be  mentioned. 
Schelling  had  come  to  see  that  nature  and  personality  are  not 
two  things,  but  are  correlatives  rather.  In  the  Identity  Phi- 
losophy, however,  in  his  explication  of  this  position,  he  returned 
to  the  position  of  Spinoza,  in  which  subject  and  object,  mind 
and  nature,  are  regarded  as  parallel  developments  of  equal 
importance  and  value.  All  difference  is  merged  in  absolute 
oneness.  He  finds  nothing  in  spirit  but  what  he  had  found  in 
nature.  In  this  admission,  it  would  appear  that  Schelling 
eliminated  the  real  import  of  the  idealistic  principle  as  funda- 
mental to  the  thought  of  Kant,  Fichte,  and  Hegel.  (See  fur- 
ther brief  notes  on  this  point  in  Hegel's  Doctrine  of  the  Will,  pp. 
26-27,  30-31,  34-41-) 

5.  The  problem  of  Hegel  (1770-1831)  is  still  the  problem  of 
Kant  and  Fichte,  namely.  What  does  experience  involve,  and 
what  is  the  intimate  nature  of  the  consciousness  which  that 
experience  presupposes  ?  All  three  were  in  essential  agreement 
in  maintaining  that  the  fundamental  error  of  the  older  philoso- 
phy had  been  the  doctrine  of  the  independent  existence  of 
the  world  without  and  the  world  within,  and  that  only  in  the 
recognition  of  their  organic  unity  can  any  explanation  of  their 
relations  one  to  the  other  be  offered.  The  true  nature  of  this 
principle  of  organic  unity  is  disclosed  in  self -consciousness.  The 
implications  of  this  position  had  been  only  imperfectly  grasped 
by  Kant  and  Fichte.  Schelling,  though  beginning  well,  had 
ended  with  Spinozism.  Hegel,  too,  recognized  that  self -con- 
sciousness is  the  unity  to  which  every  manifold  must  be  referred. 
But  he  was  the  first  to  show  in  systematic  form,  through  an 
exhibition  of  the  categories  as  antithetical  yet  'interlocked 
moments '  in  the  very  nature  of  the  self,  that  self-consciousness 
is  founded  upon  difference;  that  consciousness  is  a  'many-in- 
one,' — an  organic  whole  in  which  the  opposition  between  the 
self  and  the  external  world  is  overcome.  (For  a  more  adequate 
statement  than  could  justly  be  given  in  a  brief  outline  of  Hegel's 
interpretation  of  nature  and  history,  especially  the  latter,  on 
the  basis  of  this  theory  of  self -consciousness,  see  any  one  of  the 
following  works:  Caird,  Hegel;  Harris,  The  Logic  of  Hegel;  Wal- 
lace, art.  Hegel  in  Encyclopcudia  Britannica.  For  an  account 
of  Hegel's  theory  of  ethics  and  of  the  ethical  development  from 


251]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       41 

Kant  to  Hegel,  see  Hegel's  Doctrine  of  the  Will.)  In  the  study 
of  the  ethical  significance  of  Hegel's  work  the  following  points 
at  least  should  be  noted:  (i)  The  three  aspects  or  stages  of 
every  truth  or  reality,  thesis,  antithesis,  synthesis.  (2)  Con- 
sciousness as  an  indissoluble  unity  of  opposites.  (3)  The  Ab- 
solute as  spiritual.  (4)  The  world  of  nature  and  humanity  a 
process  of  development,  a  manifestation  of  the  Absolute.  (5) 
The  notion  of  moral  progress  by  antagonism.  The  conscious- 
ness of  self  implies  a  consciousness  of  not -self,  and  grows  with 
it  and  by  means  of  it.  Its  progress  is  thus  one  of  self-deter- 
mination and  self-realization  through  environment — ^the  environ- 
ment of  an  intellectual  and  moral  world. 

In  his  Logic  of  Hegel  Dr.  Harris  says  that  the  test  of  any  sys- 
tem of  philosophy  is  the  account  it  gives  of  the  institutions  of 
civilization.  "What  does  it  see  in  human  history  and  the  in- 
stitutions of  the  family,  civil  society,  the  state,  the  church?" 
It  is  in  Hegel's  attempt  to  answer  this  question,  to  trace  in  the 
manifold  forms  of  institutional  life  the  element  of  rationality 
and  of  spiritual  significance,  and  to  indicate  how  the  culture 
and  perfecting  of  the  individual  life  is  not  attained  by  the  one 
whose  life  is  lived  in  accordance  with  mere  nature,  nor  by  him 
who  "cares  but  to  pass  into  the  silent  life,"  but  by  the  one  who 
sees  treasured  up  in  the  various  relations  of  concrete  social 
life, — the  family,  the  community,  the  state,  the  church, — the 
spiritual  experience  of  the  human  race,  and  who,  supported  by 
this  insight,  is  living  a  shared  life  along  the  beaten  highways  of 
this  common  world.  Not  elsewhere,  according  to  Hegel,  is  the 
way  which  leads  to  the  everlasting  life. 

References: 

Besides  the  works  of  Fichte  and  Hegel  (especially  Fichte's 
Science  of  Rights,  and  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Right  and  Philosophy 
of  History)  and  the  various  histories  of  philosophy,  the  following 
interpretations  may  be  consulted  on  particular  points:  Adamson, 
Fichte,  also,  Lectures  on  Modern  Philosophy;  Baillie,  The  Origin  and 
Significance  of  Hegel's  Logic;  Bosanquet,  Philosophical  Theory  of  the 
State;  Caird  (E.),  Hegel;  Caird  (J.),  The  Philosophy  of  Religion; 
Everett,  Fichte's  Science  of  Knowledge;  Harris,  Logic  of  Hegel; 
Hibben,  The  Logic  of  Hegel;  Jodl,  Geschichte  der  Ethik  in  der 
neuren  Philosophic;  McTaggart,  Studies  in  the  Hegelian  Dialectic, 
also,  Studies  in  the  Hegelian  Cosmology;  Seth,  From  Kant  to  Hegel, 
also,  Hegelianism,  and  Personality;  Stirling,  Secret  of  Hegel;  Wal- 
lace, Lectures  and  Essays  on  Natural  Theology  and  Ethics,  Pro- 
legomena to  the  Logic  of  Hegel,  also  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Mind 
{^Introductory  Essays) . 


42  Teachers  College  Record  [252 

Further  problems  for  study : 

1 .  Fichte's  conception  of  individualitj'. 

2.  The  significance  for  educational  theory  of  Fichte's  doctrine  of 

self-activity. 

3.  Fichte's  conception  of  institutions. 

4.  The    development    of    the    conception    of    the    'antithetical 

method'  in  Kant,  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel. 

5.  Hegel's  doctrine  of  freedom. 

6.  Hegel's  conception  of  the  state. 

7.  Hegel's  conception  of  the  parallelism  between  the  develop- 

ment of  the  individual  and  the  evolution  of  the  race. 


VI 

FROM  ROUSSEAU  TO  FROEBEL;  THE  EVOLUTION  OF 
EDUCATIONAL  IDEAS 

I.  In  a  study  of  the  evolution  of  educational  ideas  from 
Rousseau  to  Froebel  it  is  necessary  to  keep  in  mind  the  intimate 
but  complex  intellectual  relations  of  the  three  great  movements 
of  the  period,  outlined,  with  a  view  to  their  educational  signifi- 
cance chiefly,  in  the  preceding  sections,  namely,  (i)  the 
revolutionary  naturalism  of  Rousseau,  (2)  romanticism,  (3)  the 
transcendental  development  in  philosophy  from  Kant  to  Hegel. 
All  three  movements  center  ultimately  about  the  question, 
What  is  the  right  life  of  the  soul?  Without  any  attempt  at  com- 
pleteness of  statement  and  without  being  oblivious  of  their 
evident  shortcomings,  the  more  important  elements  of  the 
ethical  and  cultural  significance  in  these  three  movements  may 
be  noted: 

(a)  Naturalism:  (i)  In  asserting  the  innate  goodness  of 
human  nature,  the  natural  impulse  of  man  towards  perfection, 
the  ideal  simplicity  of  nature  against  the  existing  conven- 
tionalisms, forced  the  recognition  of  the  essential  humanity  of 
the  individual  as  opposed  to  the  artificial  products  of  culture 
and  society.  (2)  In  opposing  nature  to  man,  it  awakened  a 
passionate  love  of  natural  scenery,  and  an  interest  in  the  liberty 
and  spontaneity  of  childhood.  (3)  In  maintaining  that  the 
natural  man  is  perverted  by  civilization  it  served  to  emphasize 
the  truth  that  man  grows  by  development,  not  by  aggregation. 

(6)  Romanticism:     (i)  It  helped  to  disclose  certain  of  the 


253]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herb  art  and  Froebel       43 

deepest  things  in  nature  and  human  Hfe  by  its  emphasis  upon 
the  validity  of  feeHng  and  intuition  in  the  human  soul.  (2) 
By  its  discontent  with  the  actual  world  and  its  attempt  through 
art  and  literature  to  depict  a  truer  and  worthier  one,  it  served 
to  give  an  intensity  and  elevation  to  thought  in  the  presenta- 
tion of  more  spiritual  ideals  of  life.  (3)  It  tended  to  look  upon 
literature,  art,  philosophy,  the  life  of  nature  and  the  past  from 
a  purely  religious  standpoint,  not  merely  deepening  these,  but 
widening  the  religious  consciousness  as  well.  (4)  Through  its 
very  tendency  to  iconoclasm  Romanticism  gave  rise  to  the  de- 
mand and  search  for  fact.  (5)  It  asserted  that  the  true  spiritual 
life  is  not  constrained  and  forbidding,  but  spontaneous,  free, 
and  beautiful.  (6)  Above  all,  perhaps,  it  stood  for  man  as  man 
as  its  central  interest,  since  for  it  "above  all  nations  is  humanity." 
(c)  Idealism:  (i)  Becoming  penetrated  with  organic  ideas, 
served  to  set  the  errors  and  extravagances  of  Naturalism  and 
Romanticism  in  clear  relief,  while  asserting  the  independence, 
the  validity,  and  true  inwardness  of  spiritual  life  in  a  manner 
not  possible  to  them.  (2)  While  asserting  the  supremacy  of  the 
inner  over  the  outer,  IdeaHsm  maintained  that  only  by  the 
light  of  the  inner  can  the  world  without  be  viewed  and  inter- 
preted. (3)  In  the  fact  of  consciousness,  which  must  build  its 
own  world  of  experience,  and  in  the  moral  law  which  is  at  once 
autonomous  and  imperative.  Idealism  disclosed  the  basis  of  an 
individualism  and  a  type  of  society  which  while  real  is  but  "in 
the  making,"  and  therefore  that  (4)  life  is  not  a  fixed  condition, 
but  a  movement,  through  struggle  and  failure,  towards  further 
individualization  and  yet  more  intimate  forms  of  social  unity. 
(5)  Idealism,  starting  with  the  fact  of  self-consciousness  in  man 
— since  it  is  self-consciousness  that  makes  him  man — and 
attempting  to  discover  the  interrelations  of  the  individual  mind 
and  of  human  institutions,  showed  that  not  in  isolation,  but  only 
in  an  environment  of  social  institutions  is  the  individual  to 
find  fulfilment  for  his  will  and  assert  his  freedom,  since  the  in- 
stitutional life  of  man  is  the  objective  expression  of  his  free- 
dom, of  the  moral  ideal  thus  far  realized,  (6)  Idealism  asserted 
the  connection  of  nature  and  history  by  means  of  the  concept 
of  development.  It  showed,  moreover,  not  merely  that  man 
realizes   himself   onlv   as   he    comes    into    relation    with    social 


44  Teachers  College  Record  [254 

institutions,  but  that  he  comes  to  know  himself  only  as  he  comes 
to  know  the  objective  world  of  nature  as  well.  For  idealism, 
nature  is  neither  indifferent  nor  extraneous  to  the  Ufe  of  man. 
The  opposition  is  but  apparent,  for  in  man  nature  is  at  once 
completed  and  transcended.  From  natiire  man's  Ufe  begins: 
through  nature  he  becomes  self-conscious:  the  stimulus  of 
nature  is  the  condition  of  man's  self-assertion:  in  mastery  of 
nature  is  his  self-realization.  But  for  Idealism  nature  is  in- 
telligible and  man  intelligent  because  they  are  not  completely 
isolable  entities,  but,  with  humanity,  are  members  of  a  greater 
whole,  an  absolute,  spiritual  life,  of  whom  and  to  whom  are  all 
things.  (For  the  significance  of  Idealism  as  an  interpretation 
of  the  method  of  the  personal  life,  see  the  writings  of  Caird  (E.)  and 
Wallace.  A  fine,  though  brief,  statement  is  to  be  found  in  John 
Caird's  Philosophy  of  Religion,  Chap.  IX.  The  above  char- 
acteristics are  somewhat  more  fully  developed  in  the  mono- 
graph, Hegel's  Doctrine  of  the  Will.) 

2.  In  turning  to  the  consideration  of  Rousseau's  educa- 
tional theory  the  most  important  point  to  be  noted  is  that  as  a 
theory  it  is  altogether  the  logical  implication  of  his  general 
social  philosophy.  In  both  the  fundamental  idea  is  that  of  the 
natural  goodness  of  human  nature.  Man  comes  into  the  world 
with  no  innate  depravity.  It  is  an  evil  education  in  degenerate, 
social  institutions  that  corrupts  him.  Eliminate  all  such  evil 
influences,  and  the  very  force  of  his  inherent  nature,  in  itself 
good,  will  assert  itself  and  im.pel  him  towards  its  perfection.  The 
Emile  is  but  one  phase  of  the  larger  social  theory.  Its  central 
idea  seems  to  be  this, — ^the  corruption  of  human  life  and  human 
society  is  due  to  the  artificial  restraint  imposed  on  the  indi- 
vidual by  intellectual  culture  and  social  organization.  The 
educational  theory,  therefore,  starts  from  the  assumption  that, 
if  these  restraints  imposed  by  society  and  civilization  are 
broken,  and  the  original  nature  of  man  be  given  free  play,  a  life 
of  natural  innocence  and  perfection  will  result. 

(a)  As  in  his  treatises  upon  the  inequality  of  man  he  traces 
the  progress  of  the  race  from  the  natural  to  the  civilized,  so  in 
the  Emile  Rousseau  proposed  an  entirely  similar  problem. 
Emile  is  humanity  personified,  in  the  natural  condition  of 
childhood :  a  tutor  teaches  this  child  of  nature  naturally.     Edu- 


255]     The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       45 

cation  must  through  isolation  free  the  individual  from  the  con- 
taminating influence  of  htiman  intercourse.  Later  Emile  is  to 
enter  the  'civilized'  condition,  the  human  relations  of  the 
present  world.  The  main  argument  of  the  Emile  may  be  out- 
lined as  follows:  (i)  The  individual  is  naturally  good.  (2) 
Since  the  individual  is  debased  by  society  the  only  hope  of  re- 
foriri  lies  in  an  education  according  to  nature.  (3)  The  aim  of 
such  an  education  should  be  to  make  the  individual  independent 
and  self-sufficient;  in  a  sense,  a  republic  in  himself.  (4)  Edu- 
cation should  be  natural  as  a  free  expression  of  the  individual's 
instinctive  and  impulsive  life, — "Nature's  course  of  develop- 
ment." (5)  The  rational  and  moral  nature  of  the  child  should 
be  trained  for  the  most  part  through  the  recognition  and  dis- 
cipline of  consequences.  (6)  Up  to  the  twelfth  year  the  educa- 
tion should  be  negative;  the  attempt  not  to  gain  time  but  to 
lose  it,  shotdd  be  made.  Let  the  body  and  the  senses  be  de- 
veloped but  the  mind  lie  fallow.  (7)  No  religious  prejudices 
should  be  permitted,  no  books  read,  save  Robinson  Crusoe  and 
the  book  of  Nature. 

(b)  A  lack  of  uniformity  in  Rousseau's  usage  of  'Nature' 
should  be  noted.  It  is  used  to  designate  (i)  an  element  in  his 
general  naturalistic  philosophy,  that  man  is  naturally  good,  but 
becomes  depraved  by  society.  The  fall  of  man  is  his  fall  into 
institutions.  (2)  As  designating  a  state  of  liberty  and  equality, 
for  which  education  should  prepare.  (3)  In  the  sense  of  edu- 
cation according  to  the  method  or  principles  of  human  nature. 
(4)  In  the  sense  of  education  through  contact  with  the  things  of 
nature,  without  the  interference  of  man.  In  this  case  nature  is 
used  in  the  sense  of  inanimate  or  subhuman  nature.  Education 
in  this  sense  means  education  through  contact  with  physical 
nature. 

(c)  The  appreciation  and  criticism  of  Rousseau's  educa- 
tional ideas  naturally  center  about  (i)  the  conception  of  educa- 
tion as  the  fundamental  form  of  social  reconstruction;  (2)  the 
conception  of  the  state  of  nature;  (3)  the  conception  of  the  re- 
lation of  the  individual  to  society ;  (4)  the  confusion  of  natural 
spontaneity  with  spiritual  freedom;  (5)  the  conception  of 
negative  education;  (6)  the  conception  of  education  through 
isolation  versus  education  through  participation;    (7)  the  idea 


46  Teachers  College     Record  256 

of  the  individuality  of  the  child  as  point  of  departure  in  educa- 
tion; (8)  the  conception  of  the  ethical  personality  of  the  child 
as  motive  in  education ;  (9)  his  appreciation  of  the  significance 
of  the  study  of  the  child;  (10)  the  conception  of  development 
rather  than  instruction;  (ii)  his  influence  upon  Herder,  Goethe, 
Basedow,  Kant,  Pestalozzi,  and  indirectly  upon  Froebel. 

3.  Basedow  (i 723-1 790)  and  his  educational  ideas — Rela- 
tion to  Rousseau — Basedow  and  Goethe — Goethe's  preference 
for  the  Orbis  Pictus  to  the  Elementary — the  Book  of  Method  for 
parents  and  teachers — Education  according  to  nature — Basedow 
on  individuality — Realism. 

4.  (a)  In  an  appreciation  of  the  ethical  and  educational 
significance  of  the  work  of  Kant,  the  following  points  should  be 
noted:  (i)  The  significance  for  philosophy  of  the  general  inquiry 
into  the  conditions  of  experience.  (2)  The  significance  of  Kant's 
critical  method  in  the  determination  of  the  philosophical  bases 
of  education  conceived  as  the  process  through  which  the  individual 
gains  control  of  his  experience.  (3)  His  critical  and  educational 
interest.  (4)  The  idea  of  organism  as  uniting  the  individual 
with  nature,  society,  and  the  race.  (5)  Synthesis  (not  neces- 
sarily appearing  as  object  of  consciousness)  as  the  fundamental 
form  of  the  activity  of  consciousness.  (6)  The  doctrine  of  the 
self-activity  of  pure  reason.  (7)  The  attempt  to  discover  the 
intimate  structure  of  knowledge  and  the  adaptation  of  objective 
nature  to  the  human  mind — of  the  intelligible  world  to  intelligence. 
(8)  The  unity  of  the  theoretical  and  practical  reason.  (9)  His 
doctrine  of  personality.  (10)  Morality  as  the  aim  of  life,  and 
duty  as  regulative  in  the  educational  process.  "A  pedagogy  of 
the  Will."  (11)  The  actual  content  of  his  Lectures  on  Educa- 
tion. (12)  The  cultural  and  the  moral  aims.  (13)  Reason  and 
Faith  in  the  personal  life.  (14)  The  significance  of  Kant's  moral 
idealism  in  subsequent  thought. 

[For  a  good  statement  of  the  place  of  Kant's  thought  in  the 
history  of  education,  see  the  introduction  in  Dr.  Buchner's  edi- 
tion of  the  Lectures  on  Pedagogy.      (Kant's  Educational  Theory.)] 

(b)  It  is  necessary  to  indicate  briefly  the  significance  of  the 
Kantian  epistemology  for  educational  methodology.  Funda- 
mentally the  problem  of  subject-matter  and  method  in  education 
is  one  with  the  question  of  epistemology  in  philosophy;    that 


257]    ^^  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       47 

is,  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  subject  and  object,  of  reason 
and  experience,  of  intelligence  or  mind  to  the  world.  The 
Cartesian  dualism  is  the  epistemology  which  underlies  the 
ordinary  views  of  the  relation  of  subject-matter  and  method. 
According  to  Descartes,  the  mind  and  the  world,  consciousness 
and  matter  are  absolute  disparates.  The  mind  on  the  one  hand 
is  an  entity  by  itself,  with  its  own  peculiar  nature,  its  formal 
faculties,  and  peculiar  modes  of  operation.  It  can  be  studied  in 
and  by  itself,  quite  apart  from  its  surroundings,  apart  from  its 
relations  to  the  environment,  as  we  would  say  in  the  terminology 
of  the  present.  The  world  or  nature,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
the  absolute  opposite  of  mind,  a  purely  material  thing,  at  best 
a  mere  object  for  intelligence  or  spirit,  but  in  itself,  or  in  its  own 
structure  not  conceived  as  embodying  or  reflecting  intelligence  or 
spirit.  Against  this  dualism  a  reaction  set  in  and  in  two  direc- 
tions— Empiricism  and  Rationalism.  Empiricism,  minimizing 
the  work  of  mind,  attempted  to  show  how  the  mental  world  is 
but  part  of  a  material  world  and  is  gradually  built  up  through 
the  agency  of  this  wider  material  world.  This  is  practically  the 
position  of  Hobbes,  Locke,  and,  from  one  point  of  view,  of  Her- 
bart. On  the  other  hand.  Rationalism,  especially  Leibnitz, 
proceeded  to  show  how  the  material  world  is  a  gradual  evolution 
in  consciousness.  Every  monad,  or  individual  soul,  contains 
the  world  implicitly.  Kant's  significance  consisted  in  his  at- 
tempt to  mediate  between  these  two  extreme  positions:  his 
attempt,  in  other  words,  to  show  that,  if  the  mind's  life  is  in 
any  sense  a  process,  evolution  is  as  necessary  as  involution,  and 
involution  as  essential  as  evolution. 

The  counterpart  of  philosophical  dualism  in  educational 
theory  and  practice,  as  was  said  above,  is  the  dualism  which  in 
large  measure  obtains  in  the  conception  of  the  relations  between 
subject-matter  and  method  at  the  present  time.  They  are 
treated  as  though  they  were  quite  as  separable  as  the  mind  and 
matter  of  philosophic  dualism.  On  the  one  hand,  the  subject- 
matter  is  classified  and  arranged  as  a  pre-existing,  objective, 
material,  ready  to  be  imported  into  the  mind.  Method  on  the 
other  hand  is  regarded  as  a  purely  formal  affair,  an  altogether 
psychological  matter,  as  though  the  mind  were  self-subsisting 
apart  from  its  relations,  or  its  environment,  and  had  certain 


48  Teachers  College  Record  [258 

powers,  or  modes  of  functioning  in  and  for  itself  after  the  manner 
of  philosophic  dualism.  There  is  thus  an  intrinsic  separation 
between  mind  and  subject-matter.  Methods,  of  necessity,  be- 
came mechanical  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  became  little 
more  than  statements  of  devices  by  which  the  hard  and  fast 
dualism  between  the  isolated  mind  on  the  one  hand  with  its 
ways  of  working,  and  a  separated,  isolated  subject-matter  on 
the  other,  might  for  the  brief  space  of  the  school  period  be  over- 
come. If,  however,  it  be  maintained  that  from  the  epistemo- 
logical  point  of  view  the  so-called  'subject'  (mind)  and  the 
so-called  'object'  (the  world)  are  equally  the  differentiated 
aspects  or  results  of  a  unitary  process,  we  are  inevitably  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  subject-matter  and  method  are  not 
isolable  entities,  but  are  fundamentally  the  terminal  or  differen- 
tiated aspects  of  the  process  of  development  of  a  unitary  ex- 
perience. Subject-matter,  accordingly,  is  relative  to  the  nature 
of  the  individual.  It  is  not  something  hard  and  fixed,  external 
to  the  mind.  The  educational  process  is  not  the  outcome  of  a 
mind  with  pre-formed  faculties  exercising  upon  external  material, 
nor  is  it  the  adaptation  of  a  mind  to  a  material  completely  pre- 
determined. It  is  a  process  in  which  the  organization  of  the 
material  goes  hand  in  hand  with  the  organization  or  realization 
of  a  self  or  person.  (See  also,  Syllabus  of  a  Course  on  the  Phil- 
osophy of  Education,  pp.  20-24,  4i~43.  58-59-  On  the  general 
significance  of  Kant's  theory  of  knowledge,  see  Caird,  The  Critical 
Philosophy  of  Kant.  Other  factors  cooperated  with  the  Kantian 
epistemology  to  make  the  position  of  philosophic  dualism  seem 
untenable,  factors  which  can  be  merely  enimierated:  (i)  The 
development  of  the  Nature-philosophy  of  Schelling  and  Hegel. 
(2)  The  growth  of  industry  and  an  appreciation  of  its  depend- 
ence upon  science  and  nature.  (3)  The  growth  of  the  nature- 
sense.  (4)  The  abandonment  of  the  faculty  psychology  and 
the  adoption  of  a  psychology  of  a  more  social,  voluntaristic, 
and  pragmatic  type.  (5)  The  adoption  of  an  evolutionary  or 
dynamic  view  of  reality  and  experience.) 

5.  In  the  work  of  Fichte,  considered  from  the  educational 
point  of  view,  the  following  points  should  be  noted:  (i)  The 
influence  of  Kant  and  Pestalozzi.  •  (2)  The  ethical  significance 
of  the  unitary,  free,  self  -  activity   of  reason,  theoretical  and 


259]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       49 

practical.  (3)  Reason  in  its  practical  aspect  (i.e.,  as  will) 
fundamental.  (4)  The  world  intelligible  only  from  the  stand- 
point of  spirit,  as  spirit  only  from  the  standpoint  of  will.  (5) 
The  world  as  the  product  of  mind,  as  the  material  of  duty  mani- 
fest to  sense,  and  the  voice  of  duty  as  the  highest  manifestation 
of  the  divine.  (6)  The  dependence  of  the  ethical  life  upon  a 
system  of  limits.  (7)  Action  in  accordance  with  one's  own  con- 
viction of  duty.  (8)  The  somewhat  negative  conception  of 
institutions  coupled  with  the  ideal  of  individual  passion  and 
service  for  the  common  life.  The  thought  of  Fichte  is  in  life, 
action,  service.  His  desire  was  ever  not  so  much  to  inform,  as 
to  summon,  to  constrain  his  hearers  to  the  formation  of  a  deeper, 
more  vital  conception  of  what  life  m£ans,  what  it  ought  to  be. 
What  it  means,  what  it  ought  to  be  in  the  light  of  its  meaning, 
is  revealed  not  merely  to  reflection:  rather  is  its  reality  dis- 
closed to  the  noble  will.  (A  comparison  between  Fichte's  in- 
terpretation of  life  as  the  material  of  right  and  duty,  with 
Schiller's  interpretation  as  found  in  The  Artist,  Grace  and 
Dignity,  and  Letters  upon  the  Esthetic  Education  of  Man,  would 
form  an  interesting  study.) 

6.  For  Goethe  "man  is  most  interesting  to  man  and  should 
perhaps  be  his  only  interest.  All  else  that  surrounds  us  is 
either  the  means  of  life  or  the  instruments  which  we  use."  Goethe's 
one  interest,  his  one  problem,  is  that  of  human  culture,  the 
spiritual,  educational  possibilities  of  the  human  life  of  man  in 
all  its  concrete  intensity,  richness,  and  variety.  His  writings 
are  in  a  unique  sense  a  fulfilment  of  Faust's  aspiration  to  take 
upon  himself  the  burden  of  our  common  humanity — "ihr  Wohl 
und  Weh  auf  meinen  Busen  haufen,  und  so  mein  eigen  Selbst  zu 
ihrem  Selbst  erweitern."  The  great  works,  Faust,  Wilhelm 
Meister,  The  Elective  Affinities,  are  educational  treatises  in  the 
widest  sense,  and  are  apprehended  or  truly  discerned  only  when 
studied  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  spiritual  significance, — 
or,  as  Spinoza  might  say,  as  treatises  De  Emendatione  Intellectus. 
The  work  of  Kant  is  an  inquir}^  into  the  nature,  the  presuppo- 
sitions, the  limits,  of  human  experience.  The  work  of  Hegel  is 
a  study  of  the  great  forms  of  institutional  life  in  which  ex- 
perience has  been  organized  in  the  historic  evolution  of  the 
htunan  spirit.     The  work  of  Goethe  is  an  interpretation  of  the 


S©  Teachers  College  Record  [260 

many-sidedness,  the  universality  of  human  experience, — an  at- 
tempt to  "grasp  the  exhaustless  Ufe  that  all  men  live." 

In  a  study  of  Goethe's  legacy  of  thought  some  of  the  more 
fructifying  ideas  may  be  enumerated  as  follows:  (i)  The  con- 
ception of  life  as  fundamentally  and  essentially  personal,  positive, 
and  significant.  (2)  "Everything  that  man  xmdertakes  to  pro- 
duce, whether  by  action,  word,  or  in  whatsoever  way,  ought  to 
spring  from  the  tmion  of  all  his  faculties."  (3)  The  consequent 
failure  of  mere  knowledge  to  satisfy  the  deepest  needs  of  the  soul. 
(4)  Life  as  involving  an  element  of  experiment,  but  the  fail- 
ure of  mere  experience  as  such  to  satisfy  the  soul.  (5)  The 
fatalism  of  lawless  passion  originating  in  the  conflict  between 
elemental  instinct  and  the  moral  law.  (6)  The  conception  of 
development  through  activity,  opposition,  struggle,  aspiration. 
Life  is  essentially  progressive.  For  Goethe  the  true  merit  of  a 
life  as  of  a  work  of  art  lies  not  so  much  in  its  regularity  as  in  its 
power  of  expression.  In  man  is  the  capacity  of  ever  larger  and 
larger  life.  (7)  The  idea  of  each  individual  mind  as  having 
within  it  a  tendency  to  complete  manifestation  of  itself.  (8) 
The  necessity  of  discovering  the  relation  between  capacity  and 
activity.  Self-development  implies  self-restriction.  (9)  The 
educational  end  within  the  life-aim  or  process.  (10)  The  de- 
velopment of  freedom  through  the  appropriation  of  the  principle 
embodied  in  the  ideals  imitated.  (11)  Self-forgetfulness  as  the 
result  of  fullest  self-development  and  self -expansion.  (12)  Indi- 
vidual isolation,  selfishness,  agnosticism  are  self-destructive: 
reconciliation  with  reality  is  won  by  actual  experience  and 
faithful  work  in  the  loving  service  of  man.  (13)  The  community 
of  all  life,  the  possibility  of  expiation  and  of  moral  recovery. 
(14)  The  purity  and  piety  of  the  heart  the  road  to  spiritual  in- 
sight. (15)  'The  three  Reverences'  as  a  programme  of  edu- 
cation. (16)  Das  Ewig-weibliche  zieht  uns  hinan.  (17)  The 
divine  immanence  in  all  nature  and  human  life. 

In  Goethe's  theory  of  education  (stated  in  briefest  form) 
two  distinct  tendencies  are  apparent  (i)  concerning  the  indi- 
vidual as  such,  (2)  concerning  the  individual  as  a  member  of 
society.  His  problem  is  how  to  secure  adjustment  to  the 
collective  life  of  humanity  without  interfering  with  the  fullest 
perfection  of  the  personality  of  the  individual.     As  an  indi- 


2  6i]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       51 

vidual,  man  should  unfold  his  innate  capacities  through  aspira- 
tion, effort,  struggle,  and  even  failure,  that  he  may  attain  to 
perfect  culture,  to  the  inner  harmony  of  his  own  personal  life. 
As  a  member  of  society  he  should  take  up  into  himself  that 
education,  common  and  universal,  which  embraces  the  type 
forms  of  human  experience.  Through  self-expression  and  self- 
realization  the  individual  should  become  an  active  organ  of 
humanity,  a  conscious  bearer  of  the  social  purpose.  True  edu- 
cation proceeds,  therefore,  through  the  fullest  development  of 
individual  capacity  and  spontaneity  in  accordance  with  the 
general  law  embodied  in  nature  and  human  institutions.  Its 
task  is  to  facilitate  and  to  regulate  the  process  of  individual 
participation  in  the  collective  life  of  humanity. 

7.  Richter  (1763-1825)  was  in  many  ways  a  typical  repre- 
sentative of  German  life  in  the  early  nineteenth  century.  "In 
him,"  says  Francke,  "it  seemed  the  ideal  of  an  harmonious, 
all-embracing  individuality — ^the  main-spring  of  classic  German 
literature, — had  taken  bodily  form  and  come  to  walk  among 
men."  In  the  consideration  of  the  two  educational  treatises, 
(i)  Preparatory  Course  of  ^Esthetic  (1804),  and  Levana,  or  the 
Doctrine  of  Education  (1807),  note  (i)  the  Romantic  influence, 
(2)  Richter's  conception  of  education  as  a  liberation  and  realiza- 
tion of  individuality — "the  harmonious  maximum  of  individual 
qualities  taken  together";  (3)  as  a  social  process;  (4)  his  con- 
ception of  the  importance  of  early  education,  of  the  need  of 
freedom  and  joyousness  in  children,  of  the  educational  signifi- 
cance of  play;  (5)  the  relation  between  his  theory  of  play  and 
the  theories  of  Schiller  and  Froebel. 

8.  In  the  work  of  Schleiermacher  the  educational  influence 
and  significance  of  the  following  factors  should  be  considered 
(i)  his  conception  of  the  sacredness  of  individual  character  of 
personality;  (2)  the  religious  basis  of  the  moral  law  and  of  the 
spiritual  order  of  society;  (3)  his  doctrine  of  institutions  as 
objective  reason;  (4)  his  reconciliation  of  self -development 
(increasing  individualization)  and  self-surrender  (increasing 
participation)  to  the  common  life  and  humanity;  (5)  re- 
ligion as  the  fundamental  disposition  governing  the  develop- 
ment and  participation  of  the  personal  life. 

9.  In  Pestalozzi  (1746-182 7)  is  found  a  remarkable  instance 


52  Teachers  College  Record  [262 

of  a  life  endowed  with  deep  and  far-seeing  intuitions,  and  pene- 
trated with  an  unceasing  love  of  the  people  and  an  enthusiasm 
for  their  education  and  improvement.  In  his  deeply  religious 
nature  Pestalozzi  reminds  us  of  Comenius;  in  the  intensity  of 
his  feeling  and  of  his  demand  for  freedom  he  resembles  Rousseau ; 
while  in  his  lofty  integrity,  his  firm  adherence  to  right  and  duty, 
he  resembles  the  philosopher  Kant.  His  life  is  one  long  record 
of  sincere  consecration  to  the  cause  of  education  as  the  only 
certain  method  of  material  elevation,  and  of  moral  and  in- 
tellectual regeneration — a  method  by  which  a  people  can  be 
helped  to  a  more  industrious,  more  satisfying,  purer  and  more 
spiritual  mode  of  life.  Herein  is  Pestalozzi's  supreme  claim  to 
our  remembrance,  namely,  that  to  him,  perhaps,  more  than  to 
any  other  man  is  due  the  movement  towards  popular  education 
which  was  certainly  one  of  the  distinguishing  marks  of  the  past 
century.  With  his  name  there  is  usually  united  on  the  one 
hand  the  development  of  the  method  of  sense-perception  or  of 
object  teaching ;  on  the  other,  the  development  of  a  psychological 
basis  of  instruction;  but  both  of  these  seem  secondary  merits 
when  compared  with  his  deep  and  passionate  insight  into  the 
social  importance  of  the  elevation  of  the  people  and  the  methods 
and  suggestions  which  are  owed  to  him  for  the  realization  of  that 
end. 

(a)  Certain  dominant  elements  in  his  character  should  be 
noted:  (i)  an  acute  sensibility  of  nature,  (2)  an  intense  love  of 
individual  freedom,  (3)  a  moral  rigorism,  a  lofty  idealism  and 
optimism,  (4)  a  deep  humanitarianism, — an  imselfish  love  of 
the  poor  and  imforttmate  among  mankind. 

(6)  In  the  study  of  Pestalozzi's  life  note  especially:  (i)  His 
early  experiences,  and  the  social  and  industrial  conditions  in 
Zurich.  (2)  The  revival  of  literature  and  the  study  of  phi- 
losophy, the  demand  for  greater  simplicity  of  life  and  manners, 
the  movement  towards  intellectual  and  political  freedom.  (3) 
The  influence  of  Pestalozzi's  teachers,  especially  Zimmerman, 
Bodmer,  Breitinger,  the  influence  of  Rousseau,  Fichte,  and 
Kant.  (4)  His  various  philanthropic  experiments,  and  his  ex- 
perience in  teaching.  (5)  The  high,  ethical  purpose  ever  before 
his  mind,  from  which  he  never  turned  aside,  the  moral  and 
social  elevation  of  the  people. 


263]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       53 

(c)  While  all  his  writings  have  educational  bearings,  the 
following  appear  to  be  of  special  importance  in  studying  the 
development  of  his  doctrine  and  of  its  various  elements  in  their 
mutual  relations:  (i)  The  Evening  Hour  of  a  Hermit  (1780). 
This  consists  of  a  series  of  aphorisms — 180  in  all — on  general 
educational  principles  and  on  the  rise  of  a  people  through  edu- 
cation. In  it  is  to  be  found  the  germ  of  Pestalozzi's  educa- 
tional theory:  (i)  a  criticism  of  the  artificial  methods  of  the 
schoolroom;  (ii)  the  right  of  the  individual  to  education;  (iii) 
the  development  of  the  soul  through  inner  culture;  (iv)  the 
necessity  of  grounding  education  and  the  moral  elevation  of  a 
people  in  a  purer  and  more  vital  religious  life.  (2)  Leonard 
and  Gertrude,  Vol.  I  (1781),  Vol.  II  (1783),  Vol.  Ill  (1785),  Vol. 
IV  (1787).  A  social  romance  which  Pestalozzi  regarded  as  his 
"first  word  to  the  heart  of  the  poor  and  of  the  abandoned  of 
the  land."  Its  central  theme  is  the  physical,  intellectual,  and 
spiritual  elevation  of  a  people  through  work,  through  piety,  and 
through  education.  The  important  ideas  developed  might  be 
briefly  stated  thus:  (i)  an  education  of  individuals  suited  to 
their  station  in  life ;  (ii)  the  development  of  the  latent  powers 
of  every  individual  fend  the  inculcation  of  a  piety  of  the  heart ; 
(iii)  the  place  of  industries  in  elementary  education;  (iv)  the 
social  importance  of  education  and  the  interrelation  of  home, 
school,  church,  and  state  in  maintaining  and  elevating  the 
social  life.  (3)  Researches  into  the  Course  of  Nature  in  the  De- 
velopment of  the  Human  Race  (1797).  In  many  respects  a  re- 
markable work,  in  which  he  seeks  to  justify  the  great  importance 
which  he  attaches  to  nature  in  the  education  of  man.  Written 
at  the  suggestion  of  Fichte,  it  amounts  to  a  study  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  man.  He  breaks  away  from  the  atomistic  theory  of 
Rousseau  and  attains  to  the  idea  of  humanity  as  an  organic 
unity.  It  is  pervaded  by  a  theory  of  morality,  thoroughly 
Kantian  in  spirit.  It  suggests  the  subsequent  attempt  which 
has  been  made  to  base  education  upon  the  law  of  evolution. 
He  distinguishes  three  levels  in  the  development  of  man:  the 
animal — the  product  of  nature;  the  social — ^the  product  of  the 
race  or  of  social  relationships;  the  moral — the  product  of  man 
himself,  consisting  in  the  development  of  the  higher  elements 
of  his  nature  implanted  by  the  Creator   in   the  human   soul. 


54  Teachers  College  Record  [264 

(Compare  Fichte's  doctrine  of  the  State  as  having  to  do  with 
the  external  nature  of  man  only.)  In  the  volume  two  important 
conclusions  are  reached:  (i)  the  parallelism  between  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  race  and  the  development  of  the  individual ;  (ii)  the 
desirability  of  founding  the  laws  for  the  education  of  the  in- 
dividual on  the  laws  of  human  evolution.  (4)  How  Gertrude 
Teaches  Her  Children  (1801).  This  work  presents  the  history 
of  Pestalozzi's  methodology,  as  it  may  be  called,  or  his  views 
on  the  aims  and  methods  of  instruction.  (5)  The  Song  of  the 
Swan  (1826).  My  Destinies  as  Head  of  the  Institutes  at  Ber- 
thoud  and  Yverdon  (1826).  To  this  should  be  added.  Letters  on 
Early  Education,  written  to  Greaves,  an  Englishman,  between 
1818  and  1820. 

(d)  In  considering  the  social  philosophy  of  Pestalozzi  note : 
(i)  The  political  and  social  character  of  the  period.  (2)  The 
influence  of  Rousseau;  points  of  resemblance  and  difference. 
(3)  Pestalozzi's  conception  of  the  interdependence  of  human 
life.  (4)  Influence  of  Romanticism:  the  right  of  the  individual 
to  freer,  more  natural  self-expression.  (5)  The  actual  content 
of  Pestalozzi's  social  theory:  (i)  the  relation  of  the  individual  to 
society;  (ii)  the  three  levels  of  human  life,  natural,  social, 
moral;  (iii)  the  moral  as  above  the  social;  (iv)  the  individual's 
recapitulation  of  the  life  of  the  race.  (6)  The  inter-relation  of 
the  institutions  that  educate — home,  church,  government, 
school.  (7)  Relation  between  Pestalozzi's  social  theory  and 
his  theory  of  education.  (The  somewhat  scattered  materials  of 
Pestalozzi's  social  philosophy  and  psychological  theory  have 
been  gathered  together  and  systematized  by  Rothenberger, 
Pestalozzi  als  Philosoph  in  Berner  Studien  zur  Philosophic.) 

(e)  In  turning  to  the  consideration  of  the  more  important 
elements  in  the  educational  theory  of  Pestalozzi  it  is  first  of  all 
to  be  noted  that,  (i)  while  Rousseau  had  regarded  education  as 
a  means  whereby  individuals  might  be  saved  from  the  cor- 
rupting and  enslaving  influences  of  civilization,  Pestalozzi  ever 

'^^  regarded  it  as  a  fundamental  means  to  raising  human  beings 

into  an  intelligent,  social,  and  moral  life.  It  is  true  that  Pes- 
talozzi was  strongly  influenced  by  Rousseau,  and  attempted  to 
carry  out  the  Rousseau  plan  of  unsocial  education  with  his  own 
child.     He  perceived  the  impossibility  of  the  plan,  yet  he  never 


265]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       55 

completely  got  away  from  Rousseauism,  retaining,  as  did  Fichte, 
in  the  backgrotmd  of  his  consciousness  the  doctrine  that  human 
institutions  were  at  best  a  somewhat  mechanical  or  artificial 
appendage  to  the  individual  life.  The  doctrine  that  the  in- 
stitutions of  society  constitute  that  system  of  life  in  which  alone 
the  individual  becomes  a  person  was  an  insight  of  later  writers 
in  education.  Pestalozzi,  however,  did  not  abandon  the  best 
element  in  Rousseau's  teaching — ^the  necessity  of  making  the 
child  and  his  circle  of  experience  and  activity  the  starting-point 
in  instruction.  (2)  While  Pestalozzi  was  never  able  to  reach 
a  satisfactory  or  logical  account  of  the  relation  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  society,  nevertheless  he  saw  clearly  that  the  indi- 
vidual left  to  himself,  or  deprived  of  education,  could  never 
become  truly  human.  It  is  necessary  for  society,  in  order  to 
its  own  preservation,  to  transform  the  natural  man  into  the 
social  man.  The  education  of  the  people  thus  becomes  the 
highest  social  duty.  (3)  Education  must  be  conceived  funda- 
mentally as  national  education.  All  attempts  at  the  ctdture  . 
of  the  intelligence  and  the  elevation  of  the  moral  nature  of  the 
individual  will  be  unavailing,  which  are  not  the  outcome  of  the 
whole  spirit  and  life  of  a  people  and  which  do  not  return  to 
the  people  as  their  original  possession.  Pestalozzi  not  only/ 
recognized  the  social  importance  of  education,  but  discerned  the 
necessity  of  correlating  the  great  forces  of  the  community  life, 
the  home,  the  school,  the  church,  and  the  state,  with  a  view  to 
maintaining,  elevating,  and  perpetuating  the  social  life  of  the 
people.  This  idea  of  elaborating  and  elevating  education  into 
a  social  or  national  system  constitutes  one  of  Pestalozzi's  great 
claims  to  remembrance.  (4)  As  an  outcome  of  his  contact  with 
the  life  of  the  common  people  Pestalozzi  discerned  that  the  fun- 
damental source  of  their  barren  and  unprogressive  life  was  the 
lack  of  recognition  on  their  part  of  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  life, 
and  their  consequent  disorder  and  levity,  the  absence  of  moral 
and  religious  sentiment,  the  prejudice  and  revenges  against  the 
authorities  who  only  too  readily  profited  by  their  weaknesses. 
The  source  of  their  spiritual  elevation  he  sought  in  education. 
But  first  of  all  he  had  to  discover  its  sure  and  simple  methods  and 
materials.  As  a  result  of  his  inquiry  Pestalozzi  took  as  the 
fundamental  principle  of  his  method,  that  education,  if  it  is  to 


$6  Teachers  College  Record  [266 

fit  man  for  his  destination  in  life,  must  proceed  in  accordance 
with  the  laws  of  nature.  In  other  words,  experience  and  in- 
tuition led  him  to  believe  that  education  must  not  be  any 
arbitrary  intervention  between  the  child  and  nature,  between 
the  individual  and  the  laws  of  nature  and  humanity;  rather 
must  it  assist  the  natural  development  of  the  individual,  not 
hindering  or  doing  violence  to  it;  following,  not  forcing;  de- 
veloping, not  moulding  in  accordance  with  an  artificial  or  me- 
chanical programme.  (5)  Pestalozzi  thinks  of  the  soul  not  as  a 
mechanism  but  as  aw  organism  endowed  with  an  impulse  towards 
its  own  growth  and  realization.  It  is  a  unity  of  physical,  in- 
tellectual, and  spiritual  powers,  existing  at  first  only  in  germ; 
and  while  dependent  for  its  sustenance  first  of  all  on  its  sense- 
surro\indings,  yet  not  physically  boxmd,  but  capable  of  raising 
itself  above  the  level  of  sense  and  impulse  to  the  plane  of  the 
intellectual  and  the  spiritual,  while  still  retaining  the  former 
as  instruments  of  its  purposes.  Development,  whether  in  child 
or  man,  is  no  mere  effect  of  outside  forces  or  of  foreign  will  be- 
yond the  individual:  it  is  rather  the  individual's  inborn  power 
of  effort,  later  on  flowering  into  free  and  autonomous  will  which 
stirs  to  feeling  and  to  thought.  With  Kant,  Pestalozzi  regards 
the  capacities  of  the  soul  as  its  immanent  and  constitutive 
essence.  The  common  need  of  humanity  is  the  growth  and  de- 
velopment of  man  himself.  Nature  has  done  her  part :  let  man 
do  his!  Teaching,  then,  is  nothing  more  than  the  art  of  helping 
the  impulse,  the  striving  of  nature  after  its  own  development. 
But  in  true  development  there  is  harmony  and  proportion  of 
parts,  mutual  adaptation  and  adjustment  of  elements.  Edu- 
cation, indeed,  should  aim  at  "the  harmonious  and  equable 
development  of  the  human  powers."  Its  work  is  being  accom- 
plished in  raising  man's  nature  from  the  sensuous  plane  of 
merely  physical  existence  to  that  level  of  life  and  happiness 
which  is  possible  for  him  through  the  harmonious  upbuilding 
of  body,  mind,  and  spirit;  the  powers  of  art,  of  mind,  of  heart 
united  by  an  organic  bond  and  cooperant  to  a  common  end. 
And  the  ultimate  forces  in  this  upbuilding  of  man's  true  nature, 
Pestalozzi  declares,  are  love  and  faith;  forces  which  together 
tmify  man's  powers  of  knowing  and  acting,  love  proceeding 
from  faith  and  both  in  turn  from  God,  the  Father  of  man's  life, 


267]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       57 

necessary  thereto  as  are  the  roots  to  the  tree.  (6)  In  recog- 
nizing the  organic  nature  of  the  mental  Hfe  Pestalozzi  was  led 
to  emphasize  the  continuous  character  of  mental  development, 
and  to  make  "continuity  "  a  fundamental  element  in  his  method. 
For  him  the  mental  life  was  essentially  a  process  of  development 
or  unfolding  and  only  incidentally  one  of  acqtiisition  and  posses- 
sion. Whilst  seeking,  therefore,  to  exercise  and  strengthen  the 
capacities  of  the  child  by  means  of  incitements  to  activity  he 
endeavored  to  discover  points  of  contact  within  the  child's  ex- 
perience, to  proceed  in  uninterrupted  course  from  one  point  to 
another,  taking  care  that  the  first  should  be  fixed  in  the  mind 
before  proceeding  to  the  second. 

(/)  The  more  important  elements  of  permanent  significance 
in  the  work  of  Pestalozzi  may  be  noted  in  outline:  (i)  The  con- 
ception of  education  as  a  fundamental  source  of  social  elevation. 
(2)  The  conception  of  education  as  essentially  national  educa- 
tion. (3)  In  a  very  real  sense  Pestalozzi  became  the  creator  of 
the  modern  elementary  schools  in  that,  while  conceiving  the 
educational  aim  to  be  "the  development  and  education  of 
humanity  from  its  own  center,"  he  did  not  confine  such  de- 
velopment of  the  inner  powers  and  capacities  of  human  nature 
to  particular  classes  of  society,  but  maintained  that  the  poor- 
est and  lowliest  should  participate  in  its  benefits.  Pestalozzi 
recognized  the  rational  organization  of  elementary  education  as 
a  matter  of  primary  importance.  (4)  His  recognition  of  the 
central  and  fundamental  influence  of  the  home  life,  and  the 
necessity  of  correlation  and  cooperation  of  the  various  educa- 
tional factors  of  the  community  in  the  education  of  the  indi- 
vidual. In  connection  with  the  recognition  of  the  significance 
of  the  home  life  in  education  is  Pestalozzi's  demand  that  a 
systematic  development  of  the  child's  earliest  consciousness 
should  precede  all  real  instruction.  The  mother  is  the  child's 
first  and  best  teacher,  (5)  His  demand  that  instruction  be 
based  on  the  immediate  experience  of  the  individual;  that 
sense-perception  be  made  the  basis  of  all  intellectual  instruction ; 
that  in  the  method  of  instruction  all  arbitrariness  be  eliminated, 
and  a  natural  mode  of  procedure  based  on  the  principle  of  inner 
activity  substituted  in  place  of  an  artificial  mechanical  one — in 
a  word,  there  should  be  naturalness  of  method  in  teaching  and 


58  Teachers  College  Record  [286 

learning.  (6)  His  attempt  in  the  government  of  children  to 
introduce  the  method  based  on  interesting  and  developing 
activity,  on  thoughtful  guidance,  on  a  loving  treatment  of  the 
pupil — since  love  is  the  essential  form  of  all  human  learning — 
in  place  of  one  based  on  mere  compulsion  or  merely  mechanical 
discipline.  (7)  Pestalozzi  restored  to  credit  the  processes  of  the 
method  of  sense-perception.  For  him,  in  elementary  education 
sense-perception  is  the  fundamental  principle  of  instruction, 
indeed,  the  absolute  foundation  of  knowledge.  Considered  by 
itself  it  is  nothing  else  than  the  mere  presence  of  external 
objects  to  sense,  and  the  mere  stirring  of  the  consciousness  of 
their  impression.  In  other  words,  Pestalozzi  would  make  the 
sense-experience  of  the  child  the  educational  starting-point. 
Clear  perception  is  the  basis  of  clear  thinking.  The  world  lies 
before  the  child  at  first  merely  as  a  mass  of  confused  impressions. 
In  large  measure  it  is  the  task  of  elementary  instruction  to 
bring  definiteness  out  of  chaos,  to  separate  objects  from  one 
another,  grouping  the  like,  in  order  that  clear  conceptions 
may  be  formed.  Out  of  the  confused  impressions,  definite  and 
clear  perceptions  may  emerge,  and  on  the  basis  of  clear  per- 
ceptions distinct  ideas  may  gradually  be  built  up.  The  de- 
velopment of  the  faculty  of  thought  thus  has  its  starting-point 
in  grouping,  separating,  and  comparing  the  objects  of  sense- 
perception.  (8)  It  was  ever  Pestalozzi's  aim  to  discover  a 
method  of  instruction  by  which  the  individual  might  attain  an 
intelligent  contact  with  the  real  world.  This,  he  thought,  must 
be  brought  about  through  a  simplification  of  instruction.  What, 
then,  are  the  great  rubrics  of  instruction?  What  are  the  con- 
necting links  between  the  mind  of  the  individual  and  the  real 
world  by  which  he  is  encompassed?  " I  long  sought,"  he  writes, 
"for  a  common  psychological  origin  for  all  these  arts  of  in- 
struction, because  I  was  convinced  that  only  through  this  might 
it  be  possible  to  discover  the  form  in  which  the  cultivation  of 
mankind  is  determined  through  the  very  laws  of  nature  itself. 
It  is  evident  this  form  is  fotmded  on  the  general  organization  of 
the  mind,  by  means  of  which  our  understanding  binds  together 
in  imagination  the  impressions  which  are  received  by  the  senses 
from  nature  into  a  whole,  that  is,  into  an  idea,  and  gradually 
unfolds  this  idea  clearly.    ...    At  last,  suddenly,  like  a  Deus 


269]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       59 

ex  machina,  came  the  thought — the  means  of  making  clear  all 
knowledge  gained  by  sense-impression  comes  from  number,  form, 
and  language."  These  are,  together,  "the  elementary  means 
of  instruction,  because  the  whole  sum  of  the  external  properties 
of  any  object  is  comprised  in  its  outline  and  its  number,  and  is 
brought  home  to  consciousness  through  language."  Number, 
form,  and  language,  as  typical  materials,  form  the  elementary 
means  of  instruction.  These,  therefore,  number,  form,  and 
language,  are  made  by  Pestalozzi  the  fundamental  subjects  of 
elementary  instruction,  in  that  they  are  the  essential  conditions 
of  distinct  and  definite  knowledge.  These  should  be  taught 
with  the  utmost  possible  simplicity,  comprehensiveness,  mutual 
connection,  and  continuity.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the 
value  of  Pestalozzi 's  attempt  to  establish  an  alphabet  of  sense- 
perception  lies  in  the  originality  of  the  endeavor  rather  than  in 
positive  achievement.  (Compare  this  attempt  of  Pestalozzi  to 
attain  an  alphabet  of  sense-perception  with  the  theory  imder- 
lying  the  Gifts  of  Froebel,  and  the  A  B  C  of  Sense-Perception  of 
Herbart.) 

References: 

In  addition  to  the  works  of  the  authors  named  in  the  text,  the 
various  histories  and  encyclopaedias  (German)  of  education  and 
the  separate  monographs  of  Buchner  (Kant),  Davidson  (Rousseau), 
Luqueer  {Hegel),  Pinloche  (Pestalozzi),  see  the  works  of  Adamson, 
Bonar,  Bosanquet,  Caird,  Erdmann,  Falckenberg,  Francke,  Hoff- 
ding,  Jodl,  Paulsen,  Pfieiderer,  Robertson,  Royce,  Scherer,  Seth, 
Thomas  (Introduction  to  his  edition  of  Goethe's  Faust),  Wallace, 
,  Windelband,  Wundt,  to  which  reference  has  been  made  in  preced- 
ing chapters:  also,  Schleiermacher,  Die  Gute  Lebens  Art;  On  Re- 
ligion (Oman);  Fichte,  Popular  Works:  The  Nature  of  the  Scholar 
The  Vocation  of  Man,  The  Doctrine  of  Religion  (Smith);  Hegel, 
Philosophy  of  Right  (Dyde). 

Further  problems  for  study : 

1.  The  individual  and  his  relation  to  society  as  reflected  in  the 

work  of  (i)  Kant,  (2)  Fichte,  (3)  Goethe,  (4)  Pestalozzi, 
(5)  Schleiermacher,  (6)  Hegel. 

2.  The  background  of  (i)  political  theory,  (2)  economic  theory, 

(3)  religious  doctrine  during  this  period. 

3.  Education  as  world-building. 

4.  The  significance  for  a  philosophy  of  education  of  Kant's 

problem  concerning  the  possibility  of  experience. 


6o  Teachers  College  Record  [270 

5.  The  significance  of  Epistemology  for  educational  method- 

ology. 

6.  Education  and  teleology. 

7.  The  condition  of  German  Schools  from  1750-1800. 

8.  Motives  tmderlying  the  Elementary  School. 

9.  The  historical  conception  of  industrial  education. 

10.  The  concept  of  civilization. 

11.  "Rousseau  took  no  step  forward  in  education." — Davidson. 

12.  Pestalozzi's  educational  experiments. 


vn 

REALISM  IN  PHILOSOPHY  AND  EDUCATION:    HERBART 

I  (a)  Among  the  philosophic  opponents  of  the  IdeaUstic 
philosophy  developed  by  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel,  the  more 
important  are  Beneke,  Herbart,  and  Schopenhauer.  The  op- 
position of  Beneke  was  directed  chiefly  against  the  method  of 
the  Idealists.  Hgrbart,  starting  withex^srisMce,  ranged  himself 
against  the  ontological  position ~oFldealism,  denying  that  it  is 
possible  to  deduce  everything  from  a  single  principle,  and  op- 
posing its  monism  with  a  pluralistic  metaphysics,  and  its  phi- 
losophy of  becoming  with  a  philosophy  of  being.  Reality  is  an 
indefinite  multitude  of  irreducibly  different  entities.  Schopen- 
hauer, in  ttim,  opposed  the  Idealistic  estimate  of  the  worth  of 
life,  denying  rationality  both  to  the  world  and  to  the  world- 
grotmd.  All  considered  themselves  true  disciples  of  Kant. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  exact  scientific  method  Herbart  is 
undoubtedly  the  most  important  name  among  the  opponents 
of  Idealism.  He  claimed  that  his  system  was  more  in  harmony 
with  the  spirit  of  Kant  than  were  the  sj'^stems  of  the  Idealists. 
He  used  to  describe  himself  as  a  "  Kantian  of  the  year  of  1828." 
However  this  may  be,  it  is  not  a  difficult  matter  to  recognize 
that,  even  though  Herbart  appropriated  a  determinable  element 
of  the  Kantian  system,  nevertheless  he  introduced  in  it  a  foreign 
element  through  the  influence  of  which  the  Kantian  element 
was  modified  in  several  fundamental  respects. 

(&)  Herbart  (1776-1841)  before  entering  the  University  of 
Jena  in  1794  had  already  gained  some  acquaintance  with  the 
systems  of   Wolff   and  Kant.     In  the  university  he  came  to 


271]     The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       61 

know  Schiller  and  Fichte.  Two  years  after  entering  he  handed 
to  Fichte,  his  teacher  in  philosophy  and  the  follower  of  Kant,  a 
critique  of  two  of  Schelling's  treatises,  in  which  it  was  clearly 
shown  that  he  had  already  broken  with  Idealism.  His  first 
meeting  with  Pestalozzi  was  in  1797.  At  first  connected  with 
Gottingen,  Herbart  became  professor  in  Konigsberg  in  1809, 
where  in  18 10  he  established  and  conducted  a  seminary  in  edu- 
cation until  1833.  From  1833  till  his  death  in  1841  he  was 
professor  of  philosophy  in  Gottingen. 

(c)  Rejecting  an  idealistic  metaphysics  with  its  philosophy 
of  becoming,  Herbart  accepts  a  pluralistic  metaphysics  and  a 
philosophy  of  being.  For  him,  as  for  the  Eleatics,  being  is 
absolutely  simple.  In  his  reaction  against  the  Idealism  of 
Hegel  he  adopts  a  position  which  is  practically  a  union  of  the 
Eleatic  and  Atomistic  points  of  view — of  Parmenides  and 
Democritus.  Analysis  of  what  is  given  in  experience  forced  him 
to  believe  that  we  must  rest  content  by  positing  many  simple 
existences,  Reals — the  ultimate  ground  of  things.  Such  a  Real 
was  God,  such  the  soul,  such  the  elements  of  matter.  He  holds 
that  appearance  is  not  an  essential  quality  of  being;  indeed, 
being  and  appearance  are  quite  different  in  essence.  The  true 
reality  does  not  become,  does  not  change,  is  neither  increased 
nor  decreased.  In  the  manifold  of  Reals,  each  particular  Real 
is  independent  of  all  others.  We  can  know  nothing  at  all  of 
the  proper  nature  of  Reals,  hence  we  cannot  know  whether  they 
are  material  or  spiritual.  Herbart's  system  is  in  a  way  a 
mechanical  monadology.  To  Leibnitz  he  owed  the  idea  of  the 
soul  as  a  monad,  but  allowed  to  it  simply  existence,  whereas 
Leibnitz  (with  Kant  and  Hegel)  laid  stress  on  activity,  imity, 
synthesis.  On  the  one  hand,  Herbart  declares  that  "being  is 
absolute  position;  its  concept  excludes  all  negation  and  all 
relation,"  and  "the  soul  is  a  simple  substance  not  only  without 
parts,  but  with  no  plurality  whatever  in  its  quality."  On  the 
other  hand,  the  monad  or  Real  has  the  power  of  self-conserva- 
tion though  not  of  self-realization.  This  quality  of  the  Reals 
is  more  evident  in  those  beings  to  which  we  attribute  force  and 
life,  and  which  rise  to  consciousness  in  our  inner  experience  as 
sensations.  Indeed,  Herbart  admits  that  the  only  example  of 
self -conservation  accessible  to  us  is  that  of  our  own  sensations. 


V 


62  Teachers  College  Record  [272 

Thus,  after  all,  he,  in  his  way,  conceives  the  Reals  in  analogy 
with  our  own  psychical  states.  The  following  difficulties  are 
retained  by  Herbart  in  his  metaphysics:  (i)  the  dualism  of 
appearance  and  reality,  (2)  the  denial  of  change  to  the  Reals. 
According  to  Herbart  every  continuum  is  excluded  from  reality. 
If  he  insists  on  the  independence  of  the  Reals,  their  communion 
remains  unaccountable. 

(d)  Herbart 's  psychology  is  of  the  association  type  according 
to  which  neither  the  content  nor  the  form  of  knowledge  is 
furnished  by  the  mind.  The  problem  of  the  self  presented 
itself  to  him  first  of  all  in  connection  with  Fichte's  Ego,  which 
is  conceived  in  imceasing  self -activity.  The  soul  is  a  Real  like 
other  Reals;  its  sensations  and  ideas  are  expressions  of  its 
self-preservation.  It  is  an  error  to  look  upon  it  as  an  aggregate 
of  all  sorts  of  faculties.  There  exists  neither  feeling,  nor  know- 
ledge, nor  willing,  as  faculties  or  as  innate  forces  or  energies. 
There  is  but  one  source  of  mental  life,  the  presentation  or  sensa- 
tion which  arises  in  the  soul  when  it  has  to  maintain  itself  against 
another  soul.  At  first,  merely  blank,  formal  unity  of  which 
nothing  can  be  said  excepting  that  it  can  act  in  self-defence; 
the  soul  shows  its  character  by  what  it  does  in  the  struggle  for 
existence.  Its  peculiar  mode  of  self-defence  is  a  sensation  or 
presentation.  It  admits  presentations  to  its  domain.  Ad- 
mission proves  to  be  occupation.  Its  former  assailants  are,  so 
to  speak,  naturalized  as  ideas.  Henceforth  the  varying  mental 
contents  contend  for  supremacy,  uninfluenced  and  unhindered 
by  the  soul.  Presentations  are  thus  the  ultimate  elements  of 
the  mental  life,  whose  subsequent  unity  and  complexity  are  to  be 
explained  through  the  mechanical  interaction  and  combination 
of  the  primary  elements.  The  development  of  the  mental  life 
consists  in  the  increasing  conflicts  and  harmonies  among  its 
constituent  tmits:  some  of  which  blend  together  by  means  of 
assimilations ;  others  again  unite  in  groups  by  means  of  com- 
plications; while  others  remain  at  variance  among  themselves; 
the  resulting  whole  constituting  the  ego  or  self. 

(e)  The  necessity  for  assuming  a  psychical  Real  lies  in  the 
fact  that  our  ideas  are  always  reciprocally  related  and  interact 
one  with  the  other.  It  is  a  rather  curious  phenomenon  that  Her- 
bart should  not  have  developed  more  fully  the  implications  of 


273]    ^^^  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       63 

his  doctrine  that  there  is  no  unconnected  manifold  in  con- 
sciousness. There  is,  he  maintains,  a  continuous  tendency 
among  the  ideas  to  form  one  single  activity,  until  by  assimilation 
and  compHcation  there  arises  a  total  force  which  we  designate 
the  ego  or  self,  a  product  rather  than  a  principle,  and  which 
determines  the  nature  of  subsequent  assimilations.  Only  that 
which  is  capable  of  blending  with  the  prevailing  group  of  ideas 
('  apperception ')  can  attain  to  psychical  existence.  The  apper- 
ceiving  group  of  ideas  determines  the  nature  of  the  personality. 
Thus  for  Herbart  the  'self  is  a  composite;  consciousness  is 
not  the  condition  but  rather  the  resultant  of  ideas  which  are 
primarily  forces.  "The  Ego  is  a  restdt  of  presentations  which 
unite  and  interpenetrate  one  another  in  a  single  substance  (the 
soul)."  Just  here  there  seems  to  be  a  conflict  between  Her- 
bart's  psychology  and  his  metaphysics.  If  the  imity  of  con- 
sciousness can  be  explained  by  the  reciprocal  action  of  the 
elements,  the  metaphysical  explanation  of  the  unity  by  a  soul- 
substance  is  superfluous:  if,  on  the  contrary,  he  starts  with  a 
soul-substance  he  cannot  look  upon  the  imity  merely  as  a  pro- 
duct. First  we  have  inactivity  among  the  'Reals';  then 
collisions  or  attacks,  against  which  souls  or  Reals  react.  These 
'reactions'  are  presentations.  The  intellect  is  simply  the  sum 
of  these  and  their  combinations  conceived  in  their  totality. 
Feeling  arises  through  the  partial  suppression  of  one  presenta- 
tion or  idea.  Desire  arises  in  the  successful  struggle  of  pre- 
sentations or  ideas  against  others  which  tend  to  suppress  them. 
Desire  issues  in  will  when  it  is  accompanied  by  the  belief  that 
the  object  is  attainable.  According  to  Herbart,  therefore,  we 
are  to  think  of  the  mind  not  as  an  organism  but  as  a  mechanism. 
(/)  Herbart  appears  to  hold  that  every  idea  is  a  distinct 
entity";(originating,  it  is  true,  as  has  been  seen,  as  a  reaction  of 
the  soul  to  stimuli,  and  therefore  representing  a  certain  qualita- 
tive form  of  the  soul  itself).  His  theory  is  an  extreme  form  of 
psychological  atomism.  He  does  not  recognize,  however,  that 
if  the  essence  of  conscious  life  is  a  synthesis  or  combining  ac- 
tivity, the  particular  elements  can  possess  no  independent 
energy.  He  returns,  in  a  sense,  to  a  type  of  faculty  psychology. 
When  once  produced,  the  idea  is  an  existence  by  itself,  possessed 
of  its  own  dynamic  force,  striving  to  come  before  consciousness ; 


64  Teachers  College  Record  [274 

striving,  indeed,  to  attain  the  summit  of  consciousness.  It  is 
the  same  idea  whether  in  or  beneath  consciousness.  Various 
ideas,  of  course,  help  or  hinder  one  another  in  attaining  and  re- 
taining the  field  of  consciousness.  A  presentation  or  idea  com- 
ing into  consciousness  tends  to  draw  those  allied  to  it  also  into 
consciousness  and  to  force  out  those  unlike.  Ideas  which  are 
similar,  congruent,  assist  one  another,  and  vice  versa.  It  will 
thus  be  recognized  that  the  essential  point  in  the  control  of  ex- 
perience {i.e.,  in  education)  will  be  to  get  the  right  grouping  of 
like  ideas,  to  form  strong  associations  among  the  important 
ideas  so  that  they  will  always  reinforce  one  another.  This 
seems  to  be  the  fundamental  explanation  of  the  Herbartian 
emphasis  upon  correlation  and  concentration. 
\  2  (a)  Education  as  a  science  is  based,  according  to  Herbart, 
on  ethics  and  psychology.  The  former  points  out  the  goal  of 
education;  it  sets  the  problem;  the  latter  the  way,  the  means, 
and  the  obstacles  to  the  solution  of  the  problem.  This  rela- 
tionship involves  the  dependence  of  education  on  experience 
inasmuch  as  ethics  includes  application  to  experience,  while 
psychology  has  its  starting-point,  not  in  metaphysics  alone,  but 
in  experience  correctly  interpreted  by  metaphysics. 

(b)  The  aim  of  education  is  morality  or  virtue :  its  means  is 
educative  instruction.  "Virtue  is  the  whole  of  the  educational 
purpose."  Inner  freedom  is  the  complete  harmony  of  willing 
and  moral  insight.  The  "good  will," — the  most  important 
characteristic  of  Herbart 's  conception  of  morality  (compare 
Kant), — "is  the  steady  resolution  of  a  man  to  consider  himself 
as  an  individual  under  the  law  which  is  universally  binding." 

(c)  "The  ultimate  purpose  of  instruction  is  contained  in  the 
notion,  virtue,  morality.  But  in  order  to  realize  the  final  aim, 
another  and  nearer  one  must  be  set  up.  We  may  term  it  many- 
sidedness  of  interest.  The  word  'interest'  stands  in  general 
for  that  kind  of  mental  activity  which  it  is  the  business  of  in- 
struction to  incite.  Mere  information  does  not  suffice;  for  this 
we  think  of  as  a  supply  or  store  of  facts,  which  a  person  might 
possess  or  lack,  and  still  remain  the  same  being.  But  he  who 
lays  hold  of  his  information,  and  reaches  out  for  more  takes  an 
interest  in  it.yj — Outlines  of  Educational  Doctrine,  p.  44.  (See 
also,  Science  of  Education,  p.  62.) 


275]    ^^  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       65 

3  To  Pestalozzi  Herbart  owed,  in  part,  the  doctrine  of  interest, 
but  he  elaborated  and  transformed  it.  He  maintains  that  Pes- 
talozzi's  service  to  education  lay  in  his  recognition  of  the  need 
of  creating  in  the  child  a  definite  and  clearly  observed  experi- 
ence ;  that  we  should  not  act  as  though  the  child  had  a  body  of 
experience,  but  see  to  it  that  he  get  one.  In  the  doctrine  of 
interest  put  forward  by  Herbart  and  its  emphasis  on  the  claims 
of  the  individual,  traces  may  be  found  of  the  influence  of  Rous- 
seau working  through  the  ideas  of  Pestalozzi. 

(a)  According  to  Herbart,  "ideas  spring  from  two  main 
sources, — experience  and  social  intercourse.  Knowledge  of 
nature — incomplete  and  crude— isderivedTrom  the  former ;  the 
latter  furnishes  the  sentiments  entertained  towards  our  fellow- 
men,  which,  far  from  being  praiseworthy,  are  on  the  contrary 
often  very  reprehensible.  To  improve  these  is  the  more  urgent 
task;  but  neither  ought  we  to  neglect  the  knowledge  of  nature." 
Ideas  gained  from  experience  and  social  intercourse  constitute 
the  child's  circle  of  thought,  which  is  to  be  so.  formed  by  instruc- 
tion that  right  judgment  and  right  willing  may  grow  out  of  it. 
"Man's  worth  does  not,  it  is  true,  lie  in  his  knowing,  but  in  his 
willing.  But  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  independent  faculty 
of  will.  Volition  has  its  roots  in  thought;  not,  indeed,  in  the 
details  one  knows,  but  certainly  in  the  combination  and  total 
effect  of  the  acquired  ideas." — Outlines  of  Educational  Doctrine, 
p.  40. 

(6)  The  aim  of  instruction  is  "so  to  form  the  pupil's  circle  of 
thought  that  right  judgment  and  right  willing  may  grow  out  of 
it."  Its  specific  object  is  to  stimulate  and  develop  many-sided 
interests.  The  procedure  of  instruction  with  reference  to  the 
circle  of  thought  of  the  pupil  is  either  (1)  analytic  or  (2)  synthetic. 

(c)  The  circle  of  thought  gained  from  (i)  experience,  (2) 
intercourse,  lends  itself  to  the  development  of  two  main  forms 
of  interest,  (i)  of  cognition,  (2)  of  participation.  With  refer- 
ence to  the  circle  of  thought  educative  instruction  develops  as 
(i)  interests  of  cognition,  the  spirit  of  observation  (empirical),  of 
speculation  (scientific),  of  taste  (aesthetic);  as  (2)  interests  of 
participation,  i.e.,  love  and  feeling  of  dependence  upon  others, 
sympathetic  participation  (sympathetic),  public  spirit  (social), 
religiousness  (religious). 


r 


66  Teachers  College  Record  [276 

(d)  Interest  as  the  specific  object  of  instruction  has  four 
qualities.  It  is  (i)  far-reaching  or  continuous,  (2)  immediate, 
i.e.,  it  must  be  its  own  reward.  The  activity  of  true  interest 
must  arise  from  a  disinterested  devotion  to  the  subject  in  hand. 
(3)  Many-sided.  "Interest  arises  from  interesting  objects; 
many-sided  interests  originate  in  the  wealth  of  these,  and  to 
create  and  develop  it  is  the  task  of  instruction." — Science  of 
Education, -p.  120.  (4)  Proportionate.  There  should  be  balance 
among  j;he  various  classes  of  interest. 

(e)  Methodical  instruction  involves  (i)  clearness, — ^in  pre- 
sentatToh  of  specific  facts,  or  the  elements  to  be-4eamed;  (2) 
association, — of  these  facts  with  one  another  and  with  other 
related  facts,  formerly  acquired,  in  order  that  assimilation  and 
apperception  may  be  as  complete  as  possible;  (3)  system, — the 
coherent  ordering  of  what  is  associated;  (4)  method, — ^the  ap- 
plication in  exercises,  involving  the  activity  of  the  pupil,  of  the 
facts,  rules,  principles,  and  classification  so  obtained. 

(/)  For  Herbart,  as  has  been  noted,  experience  and  inter- 
course are  the  two  constant  teachers  of  men.  These  are  the  two 
original  sources  of  the  mental  life.  The  ideas  gained  from  these 
two  sources  must  form  the  apperceptive  basis  of  the  instruction 
process  in  the  school.  Starting,  then,  with  this  apperceptive 
basis,  presentative  instruction  takes  two  main  lines:  (i)  the 
natural-scientific,  including  geography,  mathematics,  and  natural 
history,  serve  to  supplement  almost  exclusively  the  experience 
of  the  pupil  and  hence  supply  the  sources  of  interests  of  know- 
ledge or  cognition;  (2)  the  historical,  including  history,  literature, 
language,  and  art,  serve  to  supplement  both  the  pupil's  ex- 
perience and  intercourse  with  others,  and  supply  the  sources  of 
the  interests  of  participation  or  association  with  others. 

4  (a)  Herbart,  as  was  noted  above,  denied  that  the  -mind  is 
possessed  of  certain  innate  powers  or  activities,  (i)  The  doc- 
trine of  faculties  has  its  origin  in  the  tendency  to  treat  what 
were  merely  the  prominent  classes  of  mental  states  as  real 
forces  or  activities  producing  particular  effects.  (2)  Nor  can 
we  accept  the  Kantian  notion  of  the  Ego  or  Self  as  a  s^mthetic 
activity  formative  in  the  upbuilding  of  the  experience-process. 

(b)  Presentations  or  ideas  within  the  mind  disturb  and  in- 
hibit one  another,  and  the  entire  psychical  life  is  to  be  explained 


277]    ^^  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       67 

as  a  reciprocal  tension  of  ideas..  This  fact  of  tension  causes 
ideas  to  lose  in  intensity,  and  those  of  lower  degree  of  strength 
tend  to  be  forced  below  the  threshold  of  consciousness.  Al- 
though an  idea  displaced  by  another  of  superior  strength  fades 
or  sinks  below  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  it  does  not  by 
any  means  disappear  from  the  soul,  but  may  presently  rise 
again  to  clear  and  distinct  consciousness.  Every  idea  persists 
in  the  soul:  its  displacement  in  consciousness  by  another  does 
not  annihilate  it:  it  but  renders  it  latent. 

(c)  Herbart  lays  a  particular  stress  upon  the  nature  of  the 
process  by  which  newly  entering  presentations  or  ideas  are 
"assimilated,  ordered,  formed,  and  in  part  altered"  by  the 
ideas  already  present  in  the  mind.  The  importance  of  his  work 
in  this  connection  should  be  fully  recognized.  He  makes  use  of 
the  term  'Apperception'  to  designate  the  general  process  by 
which  individual  perceptions,  ideas  or  complexes  of  ideas,  are 
brought  into  relation  to  our  previously  existing  system  of 
ideas,  and,  assimilating  with  them,  are  raised  to  greater  clear- 
ness and  distinctness.  This  is  a  central  thought  in  the  system 
of  Herbart,  from  which  he  proceeds  and  to  which  he  continually 
returns.  In  his  philosophical  explanation  he  took  as  his  start- 
ing-point certain  thoughts  of  Leibnitz,  while  in  its  educational 
interpretation  he  was  undoubtedly  influenced  by  Pestalozzi. 

(d)  For  Herbart,  then,  it  is  possible  to  explain  mental  de- 
velopment by  means  of  the  one  comprehensive  process  o^Apper- 
ception.  By  it  he  seems  to  tmderstand  thefinteraction  of  two 
analogous  presentations  or  ideas  or  groups  oT  either,  in  such  a 
way  that  the  one  is  more  or  less  transformed  or  reconstructed 
by  the  other,  and  ultimately  fused  with  it.  /The  process,  there- 
fore, is  one  (i)  of  assimilation,  in  which  the  new  is  fused  and 
incorporated  "^Tth  the  old;  (2)i  of  reconstruction,  through 
which  previously  existing  ideas  are  raised  to  greater  clearness 
and  distinctness,  and  thus  to  a  higher  degree  of  consciousness. 

(^) '  Apperception  as  the  essential  process  in  mental  develop-  ' 
ment  becomes,  therefore,  for  the  Herbartian,  the  essential  basis 
of  educational  method.  Without  asking  the  question  for  the 
present  whether  Apperception  is  a  complete  explanation  of 
mental  development,  it  may  at  least  be  admitted  (i)  that  our 
knowledge,  whether  as  identification,  comparison,  or  subsump- 


68  Teachers  College  Record  [278 

tion,  is  a  process  of  associating  the  new  with  the  old;  (2)  that 
in  the  interaction  of  the  new  and  the  old  in  the  knowledge 
process,  the  new  is  assimilated  according  to  the  individual's 
previously  existing  system  of  ideas,  and  the  old  transformed 
or  reconstructed  in  the  light  of  the  new;  (3)  that,  in  order  to 
the  control  of  experience  through  instruction  (i)  all  new  knowl- 
edge must  be  the  development  and  reconstruction  of  previous 
knowledge,  (ii)  on  a  level  with  the  pupil's  experience,  neither 
too  new  nor  too  strange,  (iii)  the  presented  material  must  be 
given  in  organized  groups  or  series. 


p^- 


5.  (a)  It  would  seem  to  be  fair  to  summarize  Herbart's  contri- 
ution  to  educational  theory  imder  the  following  headings: 
(i)  His  contention  that  both  nature  and  mind  are  characterized 
by  conformity  to  law.  (2)  His  statement  of  the  educational 
foundations,  psychology,  and  ethics.  (3)  His  insistence  on 
inorality,  or  virtue,  as  the  aim  of  education  and  upon  the  con- 
nection between  intellectual  and  moral  development.  (4)  His 
reconstruction  of  the  doctrine  of  Apperception  as  a  fundamental 
principle  in  educative  instruction.  (5)  His  conception  of  interest 
as  a  factor  in  instruction.  (6)  His  analysis  of  the  formal  steps 
in  the  instruction-process.  It  is  not,  of  course,  asserted  that 
Herbart  in  any  one  of  these  lines  was  wholly  original,  but  the 
definiteness  with  which  he  stated  the  problems  and  indicated 
their  interrelations  has  forced  upon  subsequent  writers  in  educa- 
tional theory  a  consciousness  of  the  need  of  their  still  clearer 
definition  and  fuller  reconstruction.      / 

(b)  Over  against  the  doctrine  oFPluralism  as  held  by  Her- 
bart we  may,  for  purposes  of  comparison,  set  in  outline  the 
general  position  of  Idealism  against  which  Herbart  strenuously 
contended.  Idealism,  it  may  be  said,  maintains:  (i)  Each 
finite  thing  or  being  is  part  of  a  larger  system.  (2)  Each  finite 
thing  or  being  is  a  positive  self-affirming  imity,  possessing  its 
own  peculiar  life  and  activity.  (3)  The  impulse  or  endeavor  of 
each  finite  thing  or  being  (an  expression  of  the  Absolute  in  a 
definite  and  determinate  way)  to  maintain  itself  in  existence,  to 
realize  itself  according  to  its  own  peculiar  life  and  activity,  is 
the  actual  essence  of  the  thing  or  being.  (4)  In  all  things  and 
beings  this  general  principle  of  expression,  manifestation,  or  real- 


279]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       69 

ization  is  the  same — but  with,  the  human  being  it  is  the  same 
with  a  difference.  For  man  becomes  conscious  of  his  self-realizing 
impulse.  Thus  the  Hfe  open  to  him  is  indefinitely  richer  in  con- 
tent than  that  bestowed  on  any  other  creature — ^the  Hfe  of 
intelligence,  of  social  relationships,  of  religion.  If  Herbart  had 
recognized  the  significance  or  the  implications  of  certain  of  his 
own  admissions,  (i)  that  we  cannot  but  conceive  the  Reals  in 
analogy  with  our  own  inner  states,  (2)  that  there  is  no  uncon- 
nected manifold  in  consciousness,  his  Realism  would  doubtless 
have  been  considerably  more  in  harmony  with  Idealism  than 
it  is. 

(d\)  Herbart  contends  that  the  science  of  the  reality  of 
things  (metaphysic)  must  be  kept  entirely  apart  from  the  science 
of  the  estimation  of  worth  {(Bsthetic).  ''There  is,  he  maintains 
against  the  Idealists,  no  principle  of  knowledge  which  can  unite 
in  itself  the  explanation  of  reality  and  the  proof  of  worth.  Meta- 
physics ends  with  the  assumption  of  Reals  existing  out  of  all 
relations:  Esthetics  {i.e.,  the  science  of  the  estimation  of  worth, 
aesthetic  or  ethical)  is  concerned  not  with  realities,  but  with 
relations  between  realities.  It  will,  therefore,  be  recognized 
that  Herbart  fails  to  establish  any  organic  or  fundamental 
connection  between  his  metaphysics  and  psychology  on  the  one 
side  and  his  ethics,  dealing  with  relations  of  worth  among 
volitions,  on  the  other;  between  what  is  and  what  ought  to  be. 
His  ethics,  being  fundamentally  aesthetic  in  character,  however 
much  they  may  be  said  to  center  about  the  will  and  activity  of 
an  agent,  do  not  have  their  ultimate  foundation  in  the  will  nor 
in  the  concept  of  an  end  or  ideal  which  ought  to  be  striven  for. 
He  does  not,  in  other  words,  with  his  disciple  Lotze,  find  in  what 
ought  to  be  the  basis  of  that  which  is.  Herbart 's  ethics  and 
theology  are  united  in  a  manner  quite  as  external  as  are  those 
of  Kant. 

{d)  It  must  be  acknowledged,  moreover,  that  Herbart's  ac- 
cotmt  of  the  formal  simplicity  of  the  soul's  nature  presents  a 
rather  serious  menace  to  the  acceptance  of  his  psychology  as  a 
basis  of  educational  method.  In  his  account  of  the  nature  of 
the  soul  he,  apparently,  at  first  abandons  entirely  the  thought 
of  activity.  It  is,  to  begin  with,  alien  to  all  relations  and  needs 
them  not, — does  not  need,  indeed,  to  maintain  itself  against 


70  Teachers  College  Record  [280 

them.  In  the  exigencies  of  explanation  Herbart  endows  the 
sotd  with  a  kind  of  activity,  that  of  acting  in  self-defence. 
Just  here,  it  may  be  asked,  does  not  he  unconsciously  assume 
what  he  had  to  begin  with  consciously  rejected,  namely,  self- 
activity  ? 

The  soul,  endowed  with  the  power  of  self-conservation, 
reacts  and  incorporates  the  antithetical  "  reals"  as  presenta- 
tions. But  by  introducing  into  the  soul  the  power  of  self- 
maintenance  against  opposing  "reals"  Herbart  is  confronted 
with  a  dilemma:  (i)  either  there  is  mere  antagonism  which 
would  lead  to  nothing — ^not  even  presentation,  or  (2)  the  soul 
and  that  by  which  it  is  confronted  are  positive  elements  in  a 
larger  life  or  process  from  which  the  soul  draws  (imder  the 
guidance  of  an  indwelling  tmity)  an  outside  element  which  it 
responds  to,  assimilates,  and  thus  makes  instrumental  in  its 
own  development.  By  denying  to  the  soul  a  synthetic  prin- 
ciple, or  neglecting  the  significance  of  the  union  of  elements 
within  consciousness,  Herbart,  it  would  appear,  either  fails  to 
explain,  or  explains  away,  individuality. 

But  for  Herbart  the  soul's  power  of  self-conservation  is  at 
best  an  endowment  of  only  short  duration.  If  the  soul  was 
ever  active  in  its  assertion  against  the  stimuli  which  came  from 
without,  it  never  was  active  but  once.  As  Lotze,  Herbart's 
most  distinguished  disciple,  remarks,  "Everything  further  that 
happens  in  it,  the  formation  of  its  conceptions,  the  development 
of  the  various  faculties,  the  settlement  of  the  principles  on 
which  it  acts,  are  all  mechanical  results  which,  when  once  these 
primary  self-preservations  have  been  aroused,  follow  from  their 
own  reactions;  and  the  soul,  the  arena  on  which  all  this  takes 
place,  never  shows  itself  volcanic  and  irritable  enough  to  inter- 
fere by  new  reactions  with  the  play  of  its  states  and  to  give 
them  such  new  directions  as  do  not  follow  analytically  from 
them  according  to  the  universal  laws  of  their  reciprocal  actions." 

{e)  Into  Herbart's  account  of  interest  and  attention,  more- 
over, grave  inconsistencies  seem  to  enter,  even  though  it  be 
freely  admitted  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  educational 
theory  it  has  a  considerable  amoimt  of  suggestion.  If  we  abide 
by  psychology  as  an  educational  foundation,  it  is  necessary  to 
have  ascertain  consistency  between  the  foundation  and  the  super- 


28i]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       71 

structure.  If  we  should  abide  by  Herbart's  psychology,  interest 
and  attention  would  be  the  result  of  certain  combinations  of 
ideas — purely  reflex  things:  e.g.,  the  sentence,  "I  am  attentive 
to  something"  would  mean  that  the  idea  of  this  something  rises 
into  consciousness  by  its  own  strength.  In  his  educational 
theory,  however,  Herbart  comes  to  speak  of  both  attention  and 
interest  as  forms  of  self -activity.  How,  it  may  be  asked,  if  the 
idea  be  primary  and  self-existent  as  at  first  decided,  can  we 
say  that  attention  and  interest  are  forms  of  self -activity  ?  In 
the  one  case  it  is  the  mere  product  of  the  action  and  reaction  of 
ideas ;  in  the  other  it  is  psychical,  or  5^//-activity. 

(/)  There  have  been  three  important  historical  conceptions 
in  psychology:  (i)  the  conception  of  the  inner  life  as  the  ex- 
pression or  manifestation  of  a  number  of  distinct  faculties  or 
powers  with  which  the  subject  is  endowed;  (2)  the  conception 
of  which  the  Herbartian  and  the  English  Associationist  doc- 
trines are  typical;  (3)  the  conception  which  represents  the 
mental  life  as  a  development,  the  varying  forms  of  which  are 
to  be  represented  as  stages  of  the  development  itself.  Instead 
of  giving  a  categorical  denial  to  the  Herbartian  theory  of  interest 
and  attention  as  mere  products  of  the  action  and  reaction  of 
ideas,  it  may  be  well  to  place  over  against  the  Herbartian 
psychology  an  outline  of  a  psychology  of  a  different  type  which 
seems  to  afford  a  more  secure  foimdation  for  both  interest  and 
attention,  and,  on  the  whole,  one  more  conformable  to  the  facts 
of  experience.  The  outline,  sufficient  for  our  present  purpose, 
may  be  given  as  follows:  (i)  The  mental  life  presents  itself  as  a 
teleological  system  or  process,  a  series  of  means  and  ends,  the 
outcome  of  a  continuous  co-ordination  or  functioning  of  two 
elements,  self  and  environment,  the  unity  of  which  is  foim.d  in 
the  general  process  of  control  over  the  conditions  of  life.  The 
self  is  a  concrete,  specific  activity,  constantly  directed  to  the 
accomplishment  of  something, — ^not  only  the  bearer  of  the  ex- 
perience process,  but  an  efficient  agent  in  its  furtherance.  The 
self  is  real  only  in  so  far  as  it  continues  to  act,  to  become,  to 
progress.  (2)  The  fundamental  and  central  element  of  the 
psychical  life  is  not  sensation  or  idea,  but  activity.  From  this 
point  of  view  all  phases  of  psychical  activity  may  be  grouped 
about  two  fundamental  types — Habits  and  Accommodations.  (3) 


72  Teachers  College  Record    '  [282 

Ideas  are  not  (as  Herbart  wo\ild  appear  to  hold)  things  which 
stand  apart  from  the  subject,  in  mechanical  juxtaposition  to 
the  self,  but  are  instrumental  in  the  furtherance  of  the  life- 
process.  They  are  (i)  methods  of  registering  past  experiences, 
and  (ii)  plans  of  action,  leading  to  the  organization  of  future 
experience.  Knowledge  is  teleological,  fimctional.  Sensations 
and  ideas  are  instrumental.  Herbart 's  atomic  theory  of  ideas 
(as,  ultimately,  his  theory  of  the  individual  self)  is  analogous 
to  the  political  and  social  theories  of  Rousseau. 

(g)  If  the  third  conception  of  mental  life,  outlined  in  the 
preceding  section,  be  the  one  more  conformable  to  the  facts  of 
experience,  it  would  seem  that  interest  and  attention  have  their 
foundation  not  in  the  action  and  reaction  of  ideas,  but  in  the 
adjustments  and  accomodations  of  the  self  in  the  process  of  its 
realization.  They  are  functions  of  the  active  subject, — a  sub- 
ject whose  very  essence  lies  in  its  activity,  its  manifestation,  its 
self-expression.  It  is  in  connection  with  the  realization  of  ends 
that  the  phenomenon  of  interest  manifests  itself.  In  it  are 
discovered  (i)  a  cognitive,  (2)  a  dynamic  or  impulsive  aspect, 
and  (3)  an  inner  or  subjective  feeling  of  the  worth  of  the  end 
to  which  the  attention  is  directed.  Interest'  is  the  emotional  or 
subjective  value  which  accompanies  the  self's  identification  with 
an  end  or  object  deemed  necessary  to  its  realization  or  ex- 
pression. (For  a  discussion  of  the  psychology  of  interest,  see 
articles  by  Professor  Dewey  and  Dr.  Harris  noted  in  bibliography 
of  this  section.) 

(h)  May  it  not  be  contended  that,  if  Herbart 's  account  of 
the  totally  indifferent  nature  of  the  soul  be  correct,  it  is  possible 
for  the  educator  to  make  out  of  it  what  he  desires  ?  His  psy- 
chology is  rather  the  psychology  of  the  '  learning '  process  than 
of  a  human  being.  If  it  were  strictly  true  that  knowledge  is 
primary,  Herbart 's  theory  of  virtue  or  morality  becomes  simply 
the  Socratic  doctrine  that  knowledge  is  virtue,  stated  in  terms 
of  a  mechanical  psychology.  To  control  the  individual's  action 
it  would  only  be  necessary  to  furnish  the  right  presentation,  and 
through  correlation  reinforce  this  one  by  allied  and  congruous 
ideas  in  such  a  way  that  the  focus  of  consciousness  could  be 
maintained  by  the  allied  idea-forces.  Teaching  would  thus 
become  a  mere  matter  of  idea-instilling,  and  psychological  in- 


283]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       73 

quiry  a  search  for  the  mechanism  of  the  process.  Through 
presentation  determine  mental  content;  through  mental  con- 
tent determine  desire;  through  desire  determine  activity. 
The  monad  soul  is  at  first  practically  at  the  mercy  of  the  ex- 
ternal world.  By  multiplying  the  individual's  ideas  in  the 
right  way  you  are  determining  what  his  desires  and  motives 
shall  be,  and  thus  his  conduct.  "I  confess,"  Herbart  says, 
"to  have  no  conception  of  education  without  instruction." 
From  what  precedes,  namely,  (i)  the  dependence  of  will  on 
ideas,  (2)  ideas  as  distinct  entities  possessing  various  degrees  of 
force,  (3)  similar  and  congruous  ideas  tending  to  form  alliances 
among  themselves,  it  will  be  recognized  how  necessary  for  a 
theory  of  instruction  based  upon  a  psychology  of  this  intel- 
lectualistic  type  is  (i)  the  control  of  ideas,  through  orderly 
presentation  (apperception),  and  through  reinforcement  (corre- 
lation), (2)  the  enrichment  of  the  circle  of  thought  through 
concentration  on  ethical  ideas,  and  through  amplification  of  the 
educative  materials. 

Throughout  his  account  of  the  mental  life,  Herbart  seems  to 
over-emphasize  the  intellectual  aspect,  and  to  under-estimate 
the  significance  of  activity,  feeling,  purpose,  and  habit,  and 
the  natural  correlating  power  of  the  mind  based  on  its  original 
instinctive  and  impulsive  equipment.  The  doctrine  of  Pre- 
sentationism  has  its  foundations  in  a  dualistic  theory  of  know- 
ledge (see  account  of  Kant's  theory  of  knowledge.  Chap.  Ill, 
sec.  5;  also  Chap.  VI,  sec.  4.)  It  undervalues,  moreover,  the 
significance  of  direct,  personal  experience,  and  knowledge  gained 
through  the  exercise  of  the  constructive  activities  on  the  part  of 
the  learner. 

References: 

In  addition  to  Herbart's  works,  see  Bibliographies  in  Herbart 
Year  Books,  in  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education,  1892-93, 
p.  393;  in  Rein's  Outlines  of  Pedagogics  (Van  Liew),  various 
articles  in  Neue  Bahnen,  and  in  Pddagogium;  also.  Histories  of 
Philosophy  of  Windelband,  Hofifding,  Ueberweg,  and  Falckenberg; 
De  Garmo,  Herbart  and  the  Herbartians;  Dewey,  Interest  as  Re- 
lated to  Will  (Second  Supplement  to  the  Herbart  Year  Book,  1895); 
Harris,  Herbart's  Doctrine  of  Interest,  in  Educational  Review,  June, 
1895;  Ribot,  German  Psychology  of  To-Day,  pp.  24-49;  Stout, 
Herbart's  Psychology,  in  Mind,  Vol.  XIII;  Tompkins,  Herbart's 
Philosophy  and  Educatiotial  Theory,  in  Educational  Review,  Octo- 
ber, 1898;   ^axd,  Herbart  in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica. 


74  Teachers  College  Record  [284 

Further  problems  for  study: 

I.     Herbart's  relation  to  (i)  Kant,  (ii)  Fichte,  (iii)  Pestalozzi. 
a.     The  bearings  of  the  Intellectualistic  and  Voluntaristic  psy- 
chologies on  educational  theory. 

3.  The  relation  of  interest  and  purpose  to  apperception. 

4.  Herbart's  doctrine  of  Interest. 

5.  How  far  is  the  Culture  Epoch  theory  consistent  with  Her- 

bart's view  of  the  nature  of  the  soul? 

6.  Comparison  of  Hegel's  and  Herbart's  views  of  mind. 

7.  The  influence  of  Herbart's  'PluraUsm'  on  his  psychological, 

ethical,  and  educational  theories. 

8.  The  individual  and  the  social  in  Herbart's  ethics. 

9.  The  relation  between  Herbart's  A   B  C  of  Sense-Perception 

and  Froebel's  theory  of  the  Gifts. 

VIII 
THE  EDUCATIONAL  THEORIES  OF  FROEBEL 

I.  While  Froebel  (i 782-1852)  never  succeeded  in  giving  to 
his  thought  the  rounded  completeness  of  scientific  system  which 
characterized  the  work  of  Herbart,  nevertheless  his  educational 
theories  presuppose  a  more  or  less  definite  philosophical  creed, 
the  dominant  ideas  of  which  were  the  common  property  of  the 
romantic-idealistic  movement  to  which  he  belonged.  It  is 
therefore  necessary,  first  of  all,  to  indicate  the  more  important 
philosophic  fotmdations  of  his  educational  doctrines : 

(a)  The  conception  of  Reality,  or  the  world,  as  an  organic 
unity. — Throughout  his  work  Froebel  conceives  of  the  manifold 
of  existence  as  a  single  process.  His  position  may  be  character- 
ized as  a  htmianized  Idealism,  or  a  spiritualized  Naturalism, — 
Reality,  conceived  as  a  movement  of  Absolute  Life.  With 
Schleiermacher,  it  is  true,  he  tends  to  regard  the  religious  con- 
viction of  the  unity  of  things  as  the  final  guarantee  of  the  truth 
postulated  by  philosophy.  To  any  system  of  atomism  which 
regards  a  unity  or  whole  as  a  mere  aggregate  of  its  independent 
parts  the  thought  of  Froebel  is  absolutely  opposed.  The  uni- 
verse in  spite  of  its  multiplicity  is  one.  By  itself  the  world  is 
plurality:  at  best  an  aggregate:  it  is  the  totality  of  being,  con- 
ceived in  its  differentiation.  But  it  is  a  -universe  or  cosmos  be- 
cause it  has  its  being  in  a  spiritual  principle,  in  God.  \  Reality 
is  thus  for  Froebel  an  organic  unity;  a  unity,  i.e.,  whose  differ- 


285]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herhart  and  Froebel       75 

ences  are  its  own  determinations.  Because  of  their  origin  in  a 
common  world-ground,  all  things  constitute  a  living  unity;  a 
unity,  nevertheless,  in  which  each  thing  is  also  an  individual, 
distinct  from  all  others.  Accordingly,  every  element  or  member 
of  any  unity,  natural  or  human,  must  be  evidenced  in  a  twofold 
way:  from  the  side  of  its  independence,  self-sufficiency,  and 
exclusiveness,  as  well  as  from  the  side  of  its  dependence  upon 
the  larger  whole  of  which  it  forms  a  part.  "\ 

(b)  The  corollary  of  the  first,  namely,  development. — The  two 
ideas  reciprocally  supplement  each  other.  Into  Froebel's  con- 
ception of  organic  unity  enters  the  thought  of  manifold  ele- 
ments, individual  existences,  and  activities.  To  admit  such 
differentiation  within  unity,  implies  a  dynamic,  not  a  static, 
view  of  reality.  The  reality  of  the  world  implies  the  continu- 
ous self-determination  of  a  spiritual  principle,  and  this  very 
self-determination  involves  the  process  whereby  the  world  is 
maintained  as  an  organic  whole.  By  development  Froebel 
understands  the  tendency  of  any  unity,  absolute  or  finite,  to 
differentiate  itself  into  a  manifold  while  still  retaining  its  unity. 
This  process  is  found  in  the  plant,  in  the  animal,  in  the  indi- 
vidual and  society.  Through  this  process  of  development  the 
one  passes  into  a  manifold :  in  differentiating  itself  it  individual- 
izes and  also  realizes  itself. 

(c)  The  principle  of  activity. — The  end  or  purpose  of  each 
individual  life  is  to  realize  itself  as  an  element  of  the  larger 
system  to  which  it  belongs,  ultimately  of  the  larger  organism 
of  Reality.  For  man,  the  end  is  to  come  into  harmonious  re- 
lation with  nature  and  humanity,  and  with  God,  the  immanent 
life  of  both.  This  can  be  attained  by  him  only  through  the 
exercise  of  his  own  activity  or  power  of  self-determination. 
What  the  self  is  to  be,  it  must  become  for  itself. 

[For  a  fuller  account  of  these  principles  as  interpreted  by  Froe- 
bel, see  Teachers  College  Record,  November,  1903,  pp.  16-36.  For 
materials  concerning  the  development  of  Froebel's  thought  and 
its  relation  to  the  philosophical  and  ethical  tendencies  in  the 
Germany  of  his  day,  see  translations  by  Michaelis  and  Moore  of 
the  Autobiography  of  Friedrich  Froebel,  of  Froebel's  Letters,  and  of 
Froebel's  Letter  to  Krause;  various  papers  translated  in  Barnard, 
Child  Study  Papers  (articles  by  Fichte,  Lange,  and  others);   Blow, 


76  Teachers  College  Record  [286 

Introduction  to  Mottoes  and  Commentaries  of  Froebel's  Mother  Play; 
Hanschmann,  Friedrich  Froebel  (translated  under  the  title,  'The 
Kindergarten  System,'  by  Franks),  also,  Pddagogische  Stromungen: 
Bine  Wurdigung  Pestalozzis,  Frobels,  Zillers;  Harris,  Introduc- 
tions to  translations  of  Froebel's  works;  Von  Marenholtz-Bulow, 
Reminiscences  of  Froebel;  Articles  in  Erziehung  der  Gegenwart; 
Diesterweg's  Jahrbuch;  Rheinische  Blatter  fur  Erziehung  und  Un- 
terrichts;  Kindergarten;  Padagogium  (articles  by  Dittes  and  Morf) : 
Encyclopaedias  of  Pedagogy  (with  bibliographical  references)  of 
K.  A.  Schmid,  Karl  Schmidt,  Sander,  Rein,  and  Lindner;  Seidel, 
Introductions  to  his  edition  of  Froebel's  works;  Steglich,  Ueber  die 
pddagogische  Idee  Friedrich  Froebels  in  Hirer  philosophischen  Be- 
grundung  durch  Frohschammer. 

For  the  work  of  Krause  (1781-1832)  Froebel  seems  to  have  had 
most  liking,  and  from  him  it  would  appear  borrowed  a  consider- 
able amount  of  his  technical  phraseology.  Krause  sought  to  im- 
prove upon  the  pantheism  of  the  system  of  Identity  through  his 
doctrine  of  Panentheism — a  philosophy  fovmded  on  the  notion 
that  all  things  are  in  God.  Concerning  the  relation  between 
Krause  and  Froebel,  see  especially  Krause,  Das  Urbild  der 
Menschheit,  also,  Tagblatt  des  Menschheitslebens;  also,  Eucken,  Zur 
Erinnerung  an  Krause;  Hohlfeld,  Ueber  Krause  und  Froebel; 
Schliephake,  Ueber  Friedrich  Froebels  Erziehungslehre.  The  chief 
points  in  which  a  comparison  between  Krause  and  Froebel  might 
be  instituted  are  the  following:  their  views  concerning  (i)  the 
personality  of  God,  (2)  nature,  (3)  the  relation  of  nature  to  the 
Absolute,  (4)  man,  (5)  the  community  and  solidarity  of  humanity, 
(6)  the  aim  of  education,  (7)  the  supremacy  of  will  over  intellect, 
(8)  religion  as  the  supreme  mode  of  self-realization,  (9)  the  'media- 
tion of  opposites.'  The  idea  underlying  Froebel's  conception  of 
mediation,  while  a  common  possession  of  the  period,  was  by  him 
derived  in  part  from  Krause. 

In  reading  Froebel's  Autobiography,  note  the  significance  of  his 
contact  with  nature  in  his  personal  life,  and  compare  with  the 
Prelude  of  Wordsworth  and  the  Alastor  of  Shelley.  For  Froebel, 
as  for  the  youth  in  Alastor: 

"Every  sight 
And  sound  from  the  vast  earth  and  ambient  air 
Sent  to  his  heart  its  choicest  impulses." 

Concerning  Froebel's  attempts  towards  an  interpretation  of  na- 
ture, materials  will  be  found  scattered  throughout  his  works, 
especially  the  Education  of  Man.  No  wholly  consistent  interpre- 
tation will  be  discovered,  though  many  exceedingly  suggestive 
things  are  said,  (i)  In  certain  places  an  interpretation  is  given 
reminding  one  of  the  Wordsworthian.  (2)  But,  as  Dr.  Harris  has 
frequently  pointed  out,  Froebel  was  not  a  poet  so  much  as  a  re- 


287]     The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       77 

ligious  mystic,  and  frequently,  perhaps  most  frequently,  we  find 
in  his  works  the  Romantic  impulse  uppermost, — to  revel  in  a 
content  of  consciousness  by  such  as  Froebel  and  Schleiermacher 
won  through  religious  rather  than  aesthetic  intuitions  and  symbols. 
(3)  Sometimes  he  essays  a  mathematical  construction  of  nature — 
apparently  because  the  mathematical  were  the  only  sciences  which 
had  been  given  systematic  form — as  Herbart  and  others  had  at- 
tempted. (4)  Again,  he  believed  that  he  found  the  morphological 
element  in  crystallization  as  did  Rosenkranz  in  his  Hegel's  Natur- 
philosophie.  Froebel,  it  is  true,  recognized  with  Idealism  that  the 
law  of  thought  is  the  law  of  the  cosmos,  but  with  the  Romantic 
philosophers  was,  it  would  appear,  unable  critically  to  distinguish 
between  consciousness  and  its  content,  and  to  realize  the  necessity 
of  an  epistemological  interpretation  of  the  relation  and  adaptation 
of  nature  to  mind.  Froebel  accepts  nature  as  an  immediately 
given  reality:  Epistemology  seeks  an  answer  to  the  question,  How 
can  it  be  given  to  us?  This  constitutes  a  serious  deficiency  in  his 
philosophy  of  education.  See  also  section  II.  On  the  position  of 
the  sciences  in  the  time  of  Froebel,  as  well  as  for  an  account  of 
various  philosophies  of  nature  attempted  at  the  time,  see  Merz, 
The  History  of  European  Thought  in  the  Nineteenth  Century.] 


2.  (a)  From  what  was  said  in  the  preceding  section  it  will 
be  apparent  why  Froebel  should  take  as  the  basis  of  his  psy- 
chology the  notion  of  the  self  or  person  as  an  individualization 
of  the  Universal  Life  or  Reason.  This  individuality  may  be 
modified  and  developed  through  education,  but  never  com- 
pletely changed.  From  temperament,  from  introspective  study, 
from  the  influences  of  Romanticism  and  of  Idealism  which  came 
to  him  in  the  spiritual  environment  of  his  day,  Froebel  had  de- 
veloped a  profound  but  somewhat  mystical  view  of  the  inner 
depths  of  the  human  personality.  He  found  it  quite  impossible 
to  separate  distinctly  his  psychology  from  his  philosophy.  For 
him,  as  for  Schleiermacher,  within  each  individual  there  is  the 
capacity  of  becoming  a  specific  expression  of  the  world,  at  once 
a  compendium  and  a  specific  expression  of  the  life  of  humanity, 
a  microcosmus  of  the  enveloping  macrocosmus.  The  child  is  to 
be  regarded  "as  a  struggling  expression  of  an  inner,  divine  law," 
and  therefore  education  in  its  most  comprehensive  sense  con- 
sists in  "leading  man  as  a  thinking,  intelligent  being,  growing 
into  self -consciousness  to  a  pure  and  unsullied,  conscious,  and 
free  representation  of  the  inner  law  of  divine  Unity,  and  in 


78  Teachers  College  Record  [288 

teaching  him  ways  and  means  thereto." — Education  of  Man, 
sec.  2. 

(b)  In  every  part  of  nature,  life  and  growth  appeared  to 
Froebel  as  a  progressive  development  from  lower  to  higher 
grades  of  being.  The  essential  feature  of  mind  is  activity:  the 
ego  is  not  something  which  must  exist  before  it  can  put  forth 
its  activities.  The  mind  is  a  process,  not  a  mere  succession  of 
states.  The  development  of  mind  is  the  gradual  manifestation 
of  inner  purposes,  not  the  gradual  modification  of  images  and 
associations  through  the  entrance  of  elements  from  without.  [See 
Chap.  VII,  sec.  i  (d).]  For  him,  from  one  point  of  view  mental 
growth  and  development  are  the  growth  and  development  of 
s^//-consciousness  and  through  this  development  the  individual 
becomes  aware  of  his  essence.  While  this  consciousness  of  self 
is  possible  only  through  and  is  continually  dependent  on  the 
consciousness  of  the  outer  (nature  and  society),  nevertheless 
Froebel  does  not  regard  the  inner  (or  mind)  as  externally  de- 
termined; rather  he  maintains  that  through  consciousness,  the 
individual  may  continually  emancipate  himself  from  the  law  of 
external  influence,  thereby  making  the  material,  or  nature, 
from  which  his  life  seems  to  start,  through  whose  very  oppo- 
sitions and  antagonisms  he  is  lifted  to  a  consciousness  of  him- 
self, and  which  he  comes  more  and  more  to  make  instrumental 
to  his  purposes,  the  very  medium  for  the  attainment  of  spiritual 
freedom.  Froebel,  for  the  most  part,  insists  upon  the  organic 
relation  between  nature  and  spirit.  He  does  not  say  that  man 
is  merely  natural,  nor  will  he  admit  that  man  can  get  along 
v/ithout  the  natural.  As  was  said  above,  mental  development 
is  for  him  fundamentally  an  unfolding  of  a  system  of  inner  aims 
which,  instead  of  merely  representing,  or  conforming  to  en- 
vironment, more  and  more  make  environment  the  instrument 
of  self-realization. 

(c)  "If  we  strive  to  grasp  in  a  common  unity  this  process  of 
development  we  find  an  element  which  manifests  itself  in  the 
following  forms:  (i)  as  a  germinating  and  developing  power, 
working  from  within  outward;  (2)  as  a  receptive  power,  from 
without  inward;  (3)  as  an  assimilative  and  formative  energy,  a 
synthesis  of  the  preceding  forms.  Thus  the  pivot  upon  which 
all  turns  is  the  recognition  of  life,  of  activity.''     Froebel,  ac- 


289]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       79 

cordingly,  regards  activity  as  the  ultimate  feature  of  the  men- 
tal life.  The  soul  is  an  activity,  influenced  by  its  surroundings 
and  reacting  upon  them;  thereby  adjusting  itself  to  an  ever- 
widening  environment.  Intelligence,  that  is,  perception,  mem- 
ory, thought,  is  for  Froebel  (at  least  for  the  most  part  throughout 
his  writings)  instrumental  to  the  life-process.  With  the  Volun- 
tarist  Froebel  would  maintain  that  the  ultimate  basis  for  the  ac- 
tivity of  cognition  is  furnished  by  the  will.  (See  also  section  12.) 
3.  Froebel  never  worked  out  with  any  attempt  at  logical 
precision  a  theory  of  ethics  or  of  society.  Nevertheless,  funda- 
mental to  his  thought  are  certain  well-defined  convictions  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  the  self,  the  normal  constitution  of  man,  and 
therewith  his  relation  to  the  social  and  moral  order  of  which  he 
forms  a  part.  Froebel's  social  and  ethical  theory  is  of  covrse  a 
part  of  his  general  philosophy  of  life.  It  is  of  the  type  of  ethical 
idealism  throughout .  While  having  its  foundations  in  religion  (as 
with  Leibnitz,  Lessing,  Kant,  and  Schleiermacher) ,  yet  the  right 
and  the  good  are  as  autonomous  for  Froebel  as  for  Kant.  "We 
weaken  and  degrade  the  human  nature  we  should  strengthen 
and  raise,  when  we  dangle  before  it  a  bait  to  good  action,  even 
though  this  bait  be  hung  out  from  another  world.  In  using  an 
external  stimulus,  however  seemingly  spiritual,  to  call  forth  a 
better  life,  we  leave  undeveloped  that  active  and  independent 
inward  force  which  is  implanted  within  every  man  for  the 
manifestation  of  ideal  humanity."  His  ethical  and  social  doc- 
trines have  their  religious  foundations  in  the  conception  of 
evolution  as  the  revelation  of  God.  Only  in  such  a  conception  can 
we  understand  the  facts  of  the  individual  life  from  infancy  to 
maturity:  only  on  this  basis  can  we  appreciate  the  fact  of  har- 
mony and  union  between  the  individual  and  the  processes  of  nature 
and  human  history.  The  individual  soul,  nature,  and  humanity, 
are  interrelated  elements  in  one  spiritual  process,  to  be  under- 
stood only  in  relation  to  one  another  and  in  the  light  of  the  end 
towards  which  they  seem  all  to  be  tending.  In  answer  to  the 
question.  How  to  adjust  the  individual,  who  is  always  implicitly 
more  than  a  mere  individual,  to  the  larger  life  in  which  he  must 
move  and  have  his  being,  Froebel  would  reply,  that  human  life, 
and  hence  the  educative  process,  is  possible  and  intelligible  only 
on  the  assumption  that  both  the  self  and  the  world,  mind  and 


8o  Teachers  College  Record  [290 

nature,  personality  and  environment,  have  their  origin  in  the 
intelligent  purpose  of  one  universal,  spiritual  principle;  and 
only  on  the  basis  of  such  kinship  between  the  essential  nature  of 
the  soul  and  of  that  wider  life  upon  which  the  soul  enters,  is  it  pos- 
sible to  render  an  account  of  the  education  of  the  hiunan  spirit. 

It  was  noted  above  that  for  Froebel  the  growth  of  personality 
is  a  process  of  increasing  complexity  of  individuality  through 
participation  in  a  wider  life.  On  the  other  hand,  for  him  as  for 
Kant  and  Fichte,  the  soul  must  build  its  own  world,  its  own 
representation  of  the  macrocosm.  The  soul  is  not  a  simple 
resting  identity:  it  is  not  something  which  has  activity:  it  is 
activity.  For  Froebel  as  for  Fichte  the  life  of  the  soul  is  a  con- 
tinual process  of  activity  through  which  it  attains  self-knowledge 
and  self-realization.  For  both,  moreover,  as  Froebel  declares 
"the  true  origin  of  man's  activity  and  creativeness  lies  in  his 
unceasing  impulse  to  embody  outside  himself  the  divine  and 
spiritual  element  within  him."  For  Froebel,  Schleiermacher, 
and  Fichte,  again,  we  may  say  in  Froebel's  words,  "Religion 
without  work  is  apt  to  degenerate  into  empty  dreaming  and 
purposeless  emotion,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  work  without 
religion  tends  to  degrade  man  into  a  machine.  .  .  .  Work 
and  religion  are  coeval, — as  God,  the  Eternal,  creates  throughout 
all  eternity."  The  soul  is  self -determining,  moreover,  in  spite 
of,  and  yet  by  means  of,  opposition.  The  opposition  of  nature 
and  society  to  the  development  of  the  intellectual  and  moral 
life  of  the  individual  is,  however,  only  apparent.  These,  indeed, 
are  the  means  by  which  this  very  development  is  rendered 
possible.  For  Froebel,  as  for  Idealists  generally,  the  life  of  the 
individual  is  the  process  whereby  in  knowing  the  objective  world, 
he  learns  to  know  himself;  and  he  realizes  himself  only  as  he  be- 
comes a  part  of  the  life  of  nature  and  of  humanity  as  embodied 
in  the  great  forms  of  institutional  life, — only  as  he  becomes  the 
agent  of  a  divine  purpose  to  which  all  things  ultimately  con- 
tribute. The  course  of  the  upward  movement  in  the  spiritual 
life,  therefore,  is  one  of  self-estrangement  and  self-surrender. 
Only  through  a  continual  process  of  self-surrender  to  the  life  of 
nature  and  of  humanity  does  man  attain  to  a  consciousness  of 
the  latent  wealth  of  the  inner  life. 

4.     It  will  be  apparent,  then,  why  the  life  process  of  the 


291]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       81 

individual,  and  therefore,  the  educational  process,  should  be 
conceived  by  Froebel  as  essentially  a  social  process  with  its 
complementary  phases:  (i)  increasing  individualization  and 
self-realization  through  activity,  and  (2)  increasing  participation 
in  the  various  forms  of  institutional  life,  home,  school,  society, 
state,  and  church,  in  which  the  mind  of  the  race  has  manifested 
itself.  For  him  each  one  of  tPie  various  human  institutions  con- 
stitute at  once  a  system  of  control,  and  a  medium  for  the  activity  of 
the  individual,  specific  in  function  yet  rendering  to  the  other 
complementary  and  necessary  service.  "Thus  enriching  his 
(the  individual's)  own  life  by  the  life  of  others,  he  solves  the 
problem  of  development."  According  to  Froebel,  moreover, 
the  values,  habits,  norms,  or  ideals  which  interpret,  organize, 
and  enrich  the  experience  of  the  individual  are  socially  mediated. 
They  do  not  get  to  the  individual  save  as  they  are  mediated  by 
social  agencies.  To  put  it  briefly,  the  individual  can  be  edu- 
cated only  in  the  presence  of  other  human  beings.  The  con- 
ception of  the  educational  process  as  one  through  which  the 
spiritual  possessions  of  humanity  are  mediated  by  the  various 
social  agencies,  while  not  wholly  original  with  Froebel,  yet  in 
him  attained  to  clear  consciousness  and  reasonably  definite 
statement.  While  he  was  never  able  to  work  out  completely 
this  idea  of  the  mediation  of  the  spiritual  possessions,  yet  he 
achieved  it  in  a  unique  way  so  far  as  concerns  the  first  six  years 
of  the  child's  life,  through  his  conception  of  the  home,  with  the 
mother  as  teacher,  and  of  the  kindergarten,  which  is  through 
and  through  a  social  institution, — an  agency  for  the  mediation 
of  experiences  by  means  of  the  child's  characteristic  activity 
in  that  particular  period.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  Froebel 
for  the  most  part  kept  clearly  in  mind  throughout  his  work  this 
idea  of  the  educational  process  as  a  process  of  interaction,  a  pro- 
cess by  which  the  spiritual  experience,  the  ideal  values  of  human 
life,  are  mediated  or  communicated  to  the  individual.  There 
are  places  in  his  writings  in  which,  as  will  be  pointed  out  in  a 
subsequent  section,  he  seems  to  abandon  this  conception  for  the 
intellectualistic  view,  but  this  is  certainly  not  in  harmony  with 
his  general  position.  Here  we  must  abide  by  the  principle  of 
Froebel's  thought,  clearly  separating  it  from  the  matter  of  detail 
or  its  imperfect  application. 


82  Teachers  College  Record  [292 

For  example,  in  the  Mother-Play,  his  '  most  triumphant 
achievement,'  it  may  be  noted  how  Froebel  works  out  the  idea 
of  education  as  a  process  of  interaction  between  the  two  factors 
of  the  experience-process,  society  and  the  individual,  repre- 
sented by  the  mother  and  child.  On  the  one  side  you  have  the 
child  with  its  impulses,  tendencies-to-things,  and  tendencies- 
from-things ;  to  begin  with  for  the  most  part  at  the  mercy  of  his 
environment.  The  child  contributes  the  impulse,  the  need,  the 
unformed  activity;  the  mother  (who  represents  the  social  or 
normative  side  of  the  process)  contributes  the  direction,  the 
habitual  form,  the  value  or  interpretation.  As  Miss  Blow  ex- 
presses it,  Froebel  sought  for  the  point  of  contact  between  the 
manifested  needs  of  the  one  and  the  instinctive  effort  of  the  other 
to  meet  such  needs.  The  child  and  the  mother  (or  what  the 
mother  through  thinking  love  does  for  her  child),  for  Froebel  in 
his  Mother-Play,  therefore,  are  the  terminal  aspects  of  a  unitary 
educational  process.  What  Froebel  would  have  the  mother  do, 
therefore,  is  so  to  correct,  organize,  and  enrich  the  child's  crude 
but  very  real  experiences,  that  its  experience  at  any  moment 
may  be  full  and  rich  and  therefore  preparatory  to  a  still  fuller 
and  richer  experience  in  the  future. 

(a)  In  a  fuller  discussion  than  can  be  attempted  in  the 
present  outline  of  Froebel's  conception  of  education  as  a  pro- 
cess of  interaction  between  the  two  factors  of  the  experience , 
and  thus  necessarily  of  the  educational,  process,  (i)  society  (the 
corporate  aspect,  represented  by  the  mother,  teacher,  studies, 
etc.)  and  (2)  the  individual  (representing  the  differentiated,  the 
individualizing  phase)  there  should  in  justice  to  him  be  noted 
his  treatment  of  at  least  the  following  points:  (i)  The  nature 
of  individuality;  Froebel's  conception  of  the  'self.'  Compare 
with  the  views  of  Fichte  and  Schleiermacher.  (2)  Consciousness 
as  belonging  "to  the  nature  of  man  and  as  one  with  it."  Com- 
pare the  general  idealistic  position  as  outlined  in  Chapter  V. 
(3)  The  primitive  unity  of  experience  and  its  gradual  differentia- 
tion and  integration  through  the  natural  impulse  to  activity; 
the  impulse  to  activity  finding  expression  first  of  all  through  a 
system  of  natural  instincts.  Compare  the  method  by  which 
Fichte,  Schleiermacher  and  Froebel  effect  the  transition  be- 
tween spirit  and  nature,  the  realization  of  a  spiritual  principle  in 


293]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herb  art  and  Froebel       83 

a  so-called  empirical  world.  For  Froebel,  as  for  Fichte,  freedom 
depends  on  activity  and  reflection,  and  for  both  the  ethical  law 
is  "each  particular  action  should  form  part  of  a  series  which  leads 
the  individual  to  spiritual  freedom."  (4)  The  relation  of  know- 
ledge to  will.  The  tendency  of  Froebel's  psychology  is  to  regard 
the  system  of  our  ideas  as  dependent  upon  our  impulses  and 
our  will.  (5)  The  relation  of  the  individual  to  institutions. 
(6)  The  conception  of  play  as  mediatory.  (7)  The  significance 
of  the  imitative  and  play  activities.  (8)  Studies  as  representing 
the  typical  human  interests  and  activities,  and  the  corporate 
side  of  human  life.  (9)  The  notion  that  educative  intellectual 
activity  is  attained  through  the  definition  of  contrasts  or  opposites 
demanding  mediation  and  unification,  thereby  leading  to  the 
ultimate  establishment  of  harmony.  In  the  light  of  preceding 
chapters  it  is  needless  to  say  that  the  conception  of  conscious- 
ness upon  which  this  theory  of  Froebel  is  based  was, — ^through 
the  application  of  the  organic  mode  of  interpretation  consequent 
upon  the  failure  of  the  mere  logical  principle  of  identity  to 
afford  an  explanation  of  psychical  life, — a  commonplace  in  the 
idealistic  and  romantic  philosophy  of  the  period:  the  conception, 
namely,  of  consciousness  as  an  organic  unity,  an  indissoluble 
unity  of  opposites.  Kant  and  Fichte  had  applied  the  conception 
in  their  interpretation  of  the  structure  of  consciousness  as  such; 
Schelling  and  the  Romanticists  applied  it  in  their  interpretation 
of  the  content  of  consciousness ;  Hegel,  combining  the  speculative 
temper  with  a  realistic  interest  in  nature  and  history,  and  at- 
tempting to  unify  consciousness  and  its  content,  applied  the 
conception  as  an  expression  of  the  method  of  all  spiritual  achieve- 
ment. That  Froebel  did  not  completely  grasp  the  conception  in 
its  philosophic  implications  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  at 
times  (i)  with  Schelling  {i.e.,  Schelling's  later  writings),  he 
accepts  the  position,  "the  reality  of  object  and  subject  is  strictly 
coordinate,"  and  at  times  (2)  the  Hegelian  position,  according 
to  which  in  consciousness  is  a  unity  presupposed  in  and  yet 
transcending  the  difference  between  subject  and  object,  mind 
and  matter.  The  former  position  leads  directly  to  pantheism 
and  agnosticism,  as  with  Spinoza  and  Spencer:  and  it  must  be 
admitted  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  philosophy,  in  idea 
if  not  in  spirit,  Froebel  and  Schelling  did  not  escape  the  dififi- 


84  Teachers  College  Record  [294 

culty  of  merging  all  differences  in  absolute  oneness.  The  second 
point  of  view,  that  of  the  immanence  and  transcendence  of  con- 
sciousness, is  the  position  of  theistic  ideaUsm, — undoubtedly  the 
position  which  Froebel  strove  to  occupy.  Becoming  possessed  of 
this  conception,  the  reconciliation  of  opposites,  and  by  tempera- 
ment and  training  inclining  to  an  idea  which  might  embrace  the 
educational  process  in  its  totality,  Froebel  made  it  the  con- 
stitutive and  regulative  principle  of  education.  When,  with 
Fichte,  he  emphasizes  oppositions,  antagonisms,  or  a  system  of 
limits,  as  the  condition  of  activity,  effort,  work,  and  self-de- 
velopment, Froebel  is  surely  on  the  right  track:  but  when,  with 
Schelling,  he  seems  to  emphasize  and  define  disparates,  oppo- 
sitions, and  contrasts  (without  having  afforded  a  consistent 
logic  of  the  process  of  differentiation),  apparently  to  give  relief 
and  color  to  his  idea  rather  than  to  the  reality,  he  is,  to  say  the 
least,  on  dangerous  ground.  The  validity  of  the  philosophical 
principle  which  imderlies  Froebel's  doctrine  of  the  mediation  or 
reconciliation  of  opposites  is  not  here  in  question.  (See  Teachers 
College  Record,  Nov.,  1903,  pp.  22-23;  ^^^o  compare  modern 
interpretations  of  consciousness).  The  problem  is  rather  one 
of  interpretation  of  the  principle,  and  the  critical  estimation  of 
Froebel's  use  of  it  as  a  fundamental  principle  in  educational  theory. 
Krause  made  some  approach  to  a  logical  or  systematic  deduction 
of  the  principle:  it  does  not  appear  that  Froebel  recognized  the 
necessity  of  any  such  deduction. 

(6)  In  a  study  of  Froebel's  interpretation  of  the  educational 
significance  of  play  and  games,  it  would  be  necessary  to  note 
in  some  detail  the  following  points:  (i)  His  essential  originality 
in  his  attempts  to  make  play  educationally  significant.  (2)  His 
conception  of  play  as  the  "self-active  representation  of  the  inner 
life  from  inner  necessity  and  impulse."  (3)  Theories  of  the 
origin  of  play.  (4)  Play  as  self-expression  and  as  revealing  the 
nature  of  the  child.  (5)  Types  of  the  play-activity  according 
to  Froebel:  the  play -world  of  the  child  as  symbol.  (6)  Play  in 
relation  to  art  and  work:  the  so-called  dialectic  of  play,  work, 
and  art.  The  transition  from  play  to  work.  (7)  The  iytdi- 
vidual  and  social  significance  of  imitation.  The  child's  per- 
ception of  relations,  external  first  of  all,  then  causal.  The 
transition  from  imitation  to  originality  through  the  appropria- 


295]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       85 

tion  of  the  principle  of  the  thing  or  process  imitated.  (8)  Organized 
play  as  educative:  the  individtial  and  the  generic  self.  Educa- 
tive significance  found  in  (i)  rendering  the  body  the  more 
adequate  instrument  and  expression  of  the  soul,  (ii)  affording 
opportunity  for  the  perception  of  relations,  and  thus  a  means  of 
self-control  through  the  organization  of  intelligence,  (iii)  re- 
producing typical  forms  of  human  activity,  thereby  affording 
a  means  of  social  preparation  through  the  cultivation  of  social 
judgments,  dispositions,  and  activities.  (See  Blow,  Introduction 
to  Mottoes  and  Commentaries  of  Froebel' s  Mother-Play;  also, 
Letters  to  a  Mother.  Compare  also  Froebel's  treatment  of  play 
with  that  found  in  Baldwin,  Mental  Development:  Social  and 
Ethical  Interpretations,  pp.  139-147;  Groos,  The  Play  of  Man, 
pp.  361-406;   Sully,  Studies  in  Childhood,  pp.  33-51.) 

(c)  In  Froebel's  analysis  and  interpretation  of  the  chief 
groups  of  subjects  of  instruction,  note:  (i)  His  conception  of  (i) 
the  continuity  of  experience,  (ii)  the  differentiation  and  integra- 
tion of  experience,  (iii)  social  experience  as  a  spiritual  organism. 
(2)  Studies  as  modes  of  self-realization:  processes  rather  than 
products  educative.  (3)  Studies  as  forms  of  social  experience. 
(4)  His  attempt  to  furnish  a  philosophy  or  psychology  of  the 
subject-matter  of  instruction;  in  other  words,  to  indicate  the 
"genesis  of  objects  of  study  in  order  to  discover  the  relation 
of  such  objects  to  the  nourishment  of  mind."  Science,  art, 
number,  language,  occupations,  plays  and  games,  religion. 
The  interests  fundamental  to  his  classification.  (5)  The  course 
of  study  as  the  selected  and  organized  environment  of  the  indi- 
vidual. (6)  His  classification  of  studies  in  their  relation  to  what 
Dr.  Harris  speaks  of  as  Froebel's  attempt  to  organize  a  system 
of  education  that  will  unfold  the  rational  self  and  chain  down  the 
irrational. 

5.  In  the  consideration  of  one  or  two  concrete  illustrations 
of  Froebel's  theory  of  education  it  may  be  noted  that  first  of  all 
in  the  Mother-Play  he  appears  to  have  had  in  mind  three  fairly 
well-defined  ends:  (i)  to  raise  certain  of  the  unconscious  habits 
and  activities,  or  the  indefinite  intuitions,  of  the  mother  into 
clear  and  reflective  consciousness  with  a  view  to  the  control  of 
the  child's  experience,  and  thereby  his  subsequent  growth  and 
development ;   (2)  to  indicate  within  the  experience  of  the  child  an 


86  Teachers  College  Record  [296 

element  of  rationality  and  the  capacities  and  potencies  of  larger 
and  richer  relationships,  and  therewith  a  larger  and  richer  ex- 
perience; (3)  to  indicate  how  through  simple  pictures,  con- 
versations, songs,  stories,  and  plays,  the  mother  may  present 
elements  of  an  ideal  to  the  feelings  and  imagination  of  the  child 
and  thus  consciously  assist  in  raising  it,  physically,  intellectually, 
and  morally,  into  harmony  with  that  larger  order  of  which  its 
present  experience  is  prophetic. 

6.  In  the  study  of  the  kindergarten  as  a  social  institution 
consider:  (i)  Froebel's  conception  of  human  institutions,  (i)  the 
relation  of  the  individual  and  the  social,  (ii)  the  nature  of  the 
social  unity,  (iii)  society  as  a  system  of  purposes,  (iv)  the  social 
significance  of  nature,  (v)  social  participation  and  increasing  in- 
dividualization, (vi)  the  relation  of  social  order  to  social  pro- 
gress. Froebel's  conception  of  the  significance  of  the  Family. 
"At  present  it  is  to  the  quiet  and  secluded  sanctuary  of  the 
family  that  we  must  look  for  a  revival  of  the  divine  spirit 
among  mankind."  (2)  The  structure,  the  specific  function,  and 
the  reality  of  the  social  life  within  the  kindergarten  society.  The 
view  of  social  organization  as  centering  about  activity.  (3)  The 
kindergarten  as  mediating  through  its  preparatory  work  by 
means  of  play  between  home  and  school.  Continuity  in  the 
mental  life;  between  home  and  school,  between  education  and 
life.  (4)  The  function  of  institutions  in  the  distribution  and 
transmission  of  experience.  Compare  the  conceptions  of  Fichte 
and  Pestalozzi.  (5)  Froebel's  conception  that  the  educational 
starting-point  lies  in  the  interests,  needs,  activities  of  the  child, 
and  of  education  as  a  process  of  social  interaction  (see  section  4) 
through  which  the  interests,  activities,  experiences  of  the  in- 
dividual are  corrected,  organized,  amplified,  and  made  significant 
through  the  reproduction  in  the  kindergarten  society  of  typical 
activities  and  experiences  of  the  wider  social  life :  in  other  words, 
that  the  law  which  lives  in  social  life,  and  the  ideal  worths  towards 
which  the  wider  social  life  is  struggling,  are  to  become  the  law  and 
ideal  of  the  kindergarten  society.  (6)  His  notion  that  the  best 
play-materials  are  the  children  tliemselves.  (7)  The  principles 
underlying  the  selection  of  the  materials  of  tJte  kindergarten  pro- 
gram. (8)  Froebel's  method  in  relation  to  the  ideal  of  the 
kindergarten    society.     (9)    Habituation,    Imitation    and    Sug- 


297]    T^^^  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel        87 

gestion,  and  Instruction,  and  their  respective  functions.  (10) 
The  social  significance  of  human  labor.  Compare  the  con- 
ceptions of  Fichte  and  Schleiermacher.  (11)  The  idea  of  the 
kindergarten  and  of  democratic  society.  (12)  The  success  of 
Froebel's  adjustment  of  means  to  end  in  his  system  so  far  as  he 
worked  it  out.  (See  Gilder,  The  Kindergarten:  An  Uplifting 
Social  Influence  in  the  Home  and  the  District,  in  Proceedings 
N.  E.  A.,  1903;  Harris,  The  Kindergarten  as  a  Preparation  for 
the  Highest  Civilization,  Proceedings  of  the  International  Kinder- 
garten Union,  1903.) 

7.  In  the  organization  of  the  system  of  Gifts  and  Occupa- 
tions Froebel  seems  to  have  had  in  view  at  least  three  fairly  dis- 
tinct ends:  (i)  Through  the  knowledge  of  their  form,  size,  and 
number, — according  to  Froebel  the  characteristic  qualities  of 
all  material  objects, — to  have  the  individual  gain  a  compre- 
hension of,  an  intellectual  mastery  over,  the  objects  of  the 
physical  world.  As  Miss  Blow  expresses  it:  "The  material  used 
by  kindergarten  children  for  their  productions  has  a  geometric 
basis  and  is  organized  to  illustrate  numerical  ratios.  Becoming 
familiar  with  spheres,  cubes,  cylinders,  circles,  squares,  oblongs, 
triangles,  indeed  all  geometric  planes  and  many  geometric 
solids,  the  child  learns  to  recognize  them  in  the  objects  around 
him,  while  by  constantly  applying  he  is  prepared  to  observe 
numerical  relations.  Since  all  form  rests  upon  geometric 
archetypes,  and  all  inorganic  processes  are  governed  by  mathe- 
matics, the  child's  experiences  with  form  and  number  give  him 
the  clue  to  inorganic  nature.  .  .  ."  Furthermore:  "The 
total  series  of  the  kindergarten  gifts  must  illustrate  in  the  evo- 
lution of  geometric  forms  the  general  law  of  advance  from  an 
undifferentiated  unit  to  those  highly  complex  wholes  wherein 
the  most  perfect  unity  is  achieved  through  infinite  differentia- 
tion and  integration.  For  this  reason  the  kindergarten  gifts 
move  from  the  sphere  conceived  as  excluding  to  the  sphere  con- 
ceived as  including  all  possible  faces,  corners,  and  edges,  and  to 
this  movement  of  solid  from  sphere  to  sphere  corresponds  the 
evolution  of  geometric  planes  wherein  the  circle  is  both  the 
terminus  ah.  quo  and  the  terminus  ad  quern  of  a  generative 
process,  and  the  movement  of  lines  from  the  curve  will  return 
thereto  through  the  intersection  of  straight  lines  of  different 


88  Teachers  College  Record  [298 

inclinations.  Each  solid,  plane,  and  line  is  therefore  appre- 
hended not  in  detached  and  solitary  independence,  but  as  an 
integral  member  of  a  related  series.  The  exact  place  of  each 
solid  in  the  series  is  determined  by  its  greater  or  less  approxima- 
tion to  the  sphere,  the  exact  place  of  each  plane  by  its  greater  or 
less  approximation  to  the  circle.  The  primary  purpose  of  this 
organization  of  the  kindergarten  gifts  is  to  lead  toward  the  ap- 
prehension of  all  single  geometric  forms  as  members  of  an 
ascending  system."  (Compare  the  attempts  to  indicate  how 
a  quantitative  mastery  may  be  gained  over  inorganic  nature 
made  by  Pestalozzi  and  Herbart.)  (2)  As  a  symbol  of  the  de- 
velopment of  self -consciousness,  the  common  method  of  which 
Froebel  conceived,  as  was  noted  above,  to  be  a  progressive 
mediation  of  opposites.  From  the  point  of  view  of  educational 
material  this  common  principle  of  mental  development  demands 
according  to  him  the  presentation  to  the  individual  of  contrasts 
or  opposites  in  form  and  their  gradual  elimination  by  means  of 
intermediate  series.  (3)  Through  the  self-active  representation 
of  typical  (a)  life,  (b)  knowledge,  and  (c)  beauty  forms  to  have 
the  child's  experiences  organized  and  enriched  in  such  a  way 
that  they  are  given  not  merely  a  meaning  or  a  value  but  also 
that  they  become  more  and  more  under  control,  and  the  child 
becomes  less  and  less  at  their  mercy. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  Froebel's  entire  system  of  Gifts  and 
Occupations  is  based  upon  a  recognition  of  the  motor  character 
of  consciousness.  "Thought  must  clear  itself  in  action  and 
action  resolve  itself  in  thought."  His  aim  was,  undoubtedly, 
to  maintain  a  balance  between  the  intellectual  and  the  practical. 
The  child,  he  argues,  makes  or  receives  a  plan,  and  then  executes 
it ;  has  a  thought  and  embodies  it  in  concrete  form.  It  is  inter- 
esting also  to  note  in  many  sections  of  his  writings  the  degree 
to  which  Froebel  recognized  the  reaction  of  physical  conditions 
upon  conscious  states.  (See,  e.g..  Mottoes  and  Commentaries  of 
the  Mother-Play,  English  translation,  p.  167-171.)  His  purpose 
in  the  Gifts  and  Occupations,  then,  from  one  point  of  view, 
might  be  said  to  be  to  secure  or  maintain  a  balance  between  the 
cognitive  or  intellectual  and  the  volitional  or  practical  aspects 
of  the  experience  of  the  individual.  As  experiences  for  the  child 
it  is  fair  to  say  that  the  Gifts  and  Occupations  are,  according  to 


299]    ^^  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel        89 

Froebel,  primarily  doings,  activities,  media  for  active,  motor 
expressions  through  physical  organs,  eyes,  hands,  and  the 
muscular  system  in  general.  But  this  very  activity,  Froeble 
claims,  involves  observation  and  attention,  imagination,  plan- 
ning, thought,  in  order  to  the  successful  realization  of  some  end. 
The  materials  are  flexible,  easily  provided,  and  afford  a  stimulus 
to  the  growth  and  interplay  of  ideas,  their  increasing  control, 
and  continual  embodiment  in  some  form  of  activity.  In  ad- 
dition to  the  argument  concerning  the  value  of  the  Gifts  and 
Occupations,  namely,  that  they  aim  to  maintain  a  balance  be- 
tween the  cognitive  or  intellectual  and  the  practical  sides  of  the 
experiences  of  the  child,  it  should  be  conceded  further  that  so 
far  as  Froebel  in  the  Mother-Plays,  and  the  Gifts,  Occupations, 
and  Games  endeavored  to  have  typical  modes  of  human  experi- 
ence reproduced  in  the  school,  he  was  certainly  on  the  track  of 
one  of  the  most  fundamental  and  fruitful  ideas  in  the  entire 
course  of  educational  theory.  Over  the  working  out  of  the 
system  of  Gifts  and  Occupations  Froebel  spent  fifteen  years* 
What  he  was  trying  to  discover  was  the  relation  of  these  materials 
to  the  nourishment  of  mind.  The  principle,  not  the  matter  of 
detail  or  imperfect  application,  is  the  element  of  permanent 
significance  and  value.  It  is  in  the  light  of  his  fundamental 
principles  that  justification  is  found  for  Davidson's  contention 
that  "all  future  education  must  be  built  upon  the  foundation 
laid  by  Froebel."     (See  also  sec.  11.) 

8.  In  the  consideration  of  Froebel 's  conception  of  symbolic 
education,  note  (i)  the  natural  tendency  towards  symbolism  of 
Froebel 's  mind  and  of  the  period,  (2)  the  new  conception  of  the 
relations  of  the  natural  and  the  spiritual  worlds,  (3)  the  nature  of 
the  child's  mental  imagery,  (4)  the  mental  tendency  to  unify  in 
a  "world,"  by  means  of  symbols,  the  manifold  of  sense,  (5)  the 
tendency  to  interpret  one  experience  by  another,  (6)  self-con- 
sciousness  and  objective  consciousness,  (7)  the  symbol  as  a  self- 
projection,  (8)  the  symbol  as  based  upon  analogy,  (9)  the  symbol 
as  an  approximation  to  the  universal  or  type,  (10)  the  symbol 
as  mediatory  of  social  experience,  (11)  the  symbol  as  mediatory 
of  the  technique  of  civilization,  (12)  cosmic  symbolism:  the 
microcosm  and  macrocosm.  Nature  as  a  divine  sense-symbolism 
adapted  to  the  use  of  man. 


9©  Teachers  College  Record  [300 

9.  In  Froebel's  conception  of  religion  as  affording  the 
truest  "world-view,"  and  therefore,  as  the  fundamental  dispo- 
sition governing  the  individtiaVs  participation  in  the  spiritual 
life  of  humanity,  and  modifying  the  development  of  that  life, 
note  (i)  its  relation  to  the  view  of  Schleiermacher.  The  content 
of  the  religious  consciousness.  (2)  Emphasis  of  creativity  as  the 
fundamental  attribute.  (3)  Religious  interpretation  of  nature. 
(4)  Religion  and  morality.  (5)  The  religious  element  in  the 
child-consciousness.  The  feeling  of  community.  (6)  Stages  in 
religious  development.  (7)  The  religious  motive.  (8)  Con- 
firmation of  philosophy  in  religion. 

10.  "The  duty  of  each  generation,"  Froebel  once  declared, 
"is  to  gather  up  the  inheritance  from  the  past,  and  thus  to  serve 
the  present  and  prepare  better  things  for  the  future."  The 
essential  question  concerning  any  work  is  not.  True  or  false?  but 
rather.  How  much  of  truth  has  been  brought  to  light,  however 
inadequate  at  times  its  expression  may  be,  and  however  im- 
perfect the  attempt  has  been  to  render  its  assumptions  in- 
telligible ?  Criticism  of  such  a  nature  should  enable  us  to  attain 
a  more  satisfying  because  a  more  discriminating  adherence  to  the 
thought  of  Froebel  and  to  do  full  justice  to  it  without  enslaving 
our  own.  In  attempting  to  interpret  the  permanent  significance 
of  Froebel's  thought  and  work  it  is  necessary  to  keep  in  mind 
certain  general  considerations:  (i)  His  thought  does  not  ex- 
hibit a  systematic  or  logical  unity  so  much  as  a  unity  of  ten- 
dency and  endeavor.  The  most  interesting  and  valuable 
things  in  the  life  of  an  individual  are  his  ideals.  It  is  the  motive, 
the  informing  purpose,  that  gives  its  consecration  to  life.  Froe- 
bel's thought  was,  in  its  movement,  essentially  experimental 
and  genetic.  His  theories  were  only  gradually  developed 
through  his  own  life  and  writings.  In  many  of  his  works,  as  he 
acknowledges,  he  was  "breaking  a  path  through  unexplored 
regions  of  experience,"  and  he  recognized  that  his  success  "miist 
necessarily  be  partial  and  imperfect."  (2)  In  the  study  of  his 
theories  as  developed  by  himself  it  is  very  often  necessary  to 
distinguish  clearly  between  the  principle  and  the  matter  of  de- 
tail or  particular  application.  (3)  Only  those  principles  may  be 
accepted  as  of  permanent  significance  which  receive  their  justi- 
fication in  reason  and  experience.     Methods  of  interpretation 


30 1 ]     The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       91 

and  criticism  based  upon  the  reconciling  principle  of  develop- 
ment, a  principle  underiying  the  thought  of  Froebel  as  well 
as  that  of  the  period  in  which  his  life  was  passed,  and  which 
constitutes  one  of  the  permanent  achievements  of  its  intel- 
lectual Hfe,  should  enable  us  in  the  present  to  do  justice 
even  to  the  errors  of  the  past  and  furnish  a  standard  whereby 
to  separate  the  permanent  from  the  transitory,  the  spirit 
and  the  principle  from  the  matter  of  detail  or  imperfect  ap- 
plication. Such  a  principle  of  development  is  as  hostile  to  an 
unwise  conservatism  as  it  is  to  a  dogmatic  criticism  or  overhasty 
reaction. 

In  an  account  of  the  permanent  significance  of  Froebel's 
work  for  the  theory  of  education  there  should,  if  space  per- 
mitted, be  emphasized  the  following  points:  (i)  The  conception 
of  the  theory  of  education  as  ultimately  a  philosophy  of  life. 
Education  implies  a  theory  of  the  proper  conduct  of  life,  and 
this,  in  turn,  implies  a  theory  of  life  based  upon  an  examination 
of  the  nature  of  man  and  his  place  in  the  system  of  reality.  The 
subject-matter  of  education  is  therefore  as  much  an  integral 
part  of  reality  as  that  of  any  other  science.  For  Froebel  the 
purpose  of  education  is  one  with  the  supreme  purpose  of  life. 
Our  conception  of  becoming  is  determined  by  our  idea  of  the 
reality  which  underlies  the  process.  Froebel's  general  position 
is  that  spiritual  monism  which  conceives  material  and  mental 
evolution  as  continuous  phases  of  one  spiritual  movement. 
From  the  level  of  inanimate  nature  to  that  of  human  history 
it  is  one  spiritual  reality  which  manifests  itself.  The  law, 
therefore,  which  reigns  in  nature,  and  the  purpose  revealed  in 
human  life  must  be  taken  into  the  consciousness  and  made  manifest 
in  the  life  of  the  individual.  Education,  accordingly,  consists 
"in  leading  man,  as  a  thinking,  intelligent  being,  growing  into 
self -consciousness,  to  a  pure  and  unsullied,  conscious  and  free 
representation  of  the  inner  law  of  divine  unity,  and  in  teaching 
him  ways  and  means  thereto."  One  cannot  fail  to  be  struck 
by  the  intensely  moral  tendency  in  all  Froebel's  thought.  He 
regards  all  things,  all  processes,  all  materials,  ultimately  from 
the  moral  point  of  view.  In  this  he  is  the  disciple  of  Fichte  and 
Schleiermacher  rather  than  of  Schelling.  On  the  other  hand, 
however,  Froebel's  interest  is  not  ethical  merely;    it  is  every- 


92  Teachers  College  Record  [302 

where  and  always  deeply  religious.  In  true  religion  he  finds, 
with  Schleiermacher,  the  foundation  and  final  gtiarantee  of  the 
facts  of  the  moral  life.  He  maintains  that  in  man,  in  virtue  of 
the  divine  principle  in  him,  the  consciousness  of  God  is  bound  up 
with  the  consciousness  of  himself:  and  if  the  Absolute  be  not 
manifest  and  revealed  to  us  in  the  reality  we  know,  it  is  for  us 
nothing.  It  is  questionable  whether  the  true  significance  of 
Froebel's  work  can  be  understood  until  the  religious  motive 
fundamental  to  it  all  is  fully  recognized  and  appreciated.  (2) 
A  second  point  in  Froebel's  work  which  should  be  emphasized 
is  his  perception  of  the  social  bearings  of  the  problems  of  educa- 
tional theory,  his  recognition  that  a  rational  theory  of  education 
is  related  in  a  fundamental  way  to  the  spiritual  interests  of 
society.  Froebel  was  ever  alive  to  the  need  of  keeping  his 
theories  close  to  practice,  recognizing  that  ideas  which  have 
little  or  no  relation  to  life,  but  stand  apart  from  it,  are  self- 
condemned.  However  inconsistent  at  times  Froebel's  thought 
may  appear,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  it  is  insight  rather 
than  exactitude  in  thought  that  tells  most  powerfully  on  human 
life.  (3)  A  third  feature  of  Froebel's  thought  which  should  be 
noted  is  his  emphasis  upon  individuality.  For  him  the  ten- 
dency to  individuation  is  the  unconscious  or  conscious  tendency 
of  every  finite  thing.  For  Froebel  an  individual  is  essentially 
a  creative  entity:  it  is  what  it  can  do,  and  where  there  is  no 
activity  there  is  no  being, — no  reality.  In  man,  as  in  the 
things  of  nature,  is  a  manifestation  of  the  divine  essence,  a 
manifestation  which  necessarily  attains  to  higher  expression 
and  fuller  consciousness.  Although  dependent  upon  nature, 
upon  humanity,  upon  God  as  much  as  the  stone  by  the  wayside 
or  the  beast  of  the  field,  yet  man's  dependence  is  of  a  different 
character.  The  divine  life  expresses  itself  in  man  not  simply 
as  existence,  or  nutrition,  sensation  and  impulse,  but  in  desire, 
in  the  knowledge  of  nature,  in  sympathy  for  things  human,  in 
the  creation  of  the  beautiful,  in  aspiration  towards  the  good. 
By  the  presentation  (Darstellung)  or  realization  of  the  individual 
life,  therefore,  which  Froebel  identifies  with  the  educational 
ideal,  he  means  the  evolution  of  the  spiritual  nattire  of  the 
individual,  the  development  of  conscious  self-determining  ac- 
tivity in  conformity  with  the  law  or  purpose  immanent  in  all 


303]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herhart  and  Froebel       93 

things.  In  virtue  of  reason  man  can  organize  the  objects  and 
beings  about  him  into  systems, — nature  and  humanity, — and 
gradually  rise  to  the  unity  of  essence  and  manifestation,  of  inner 
and  outer,  and  the  recognition  of  God  as  the  immanent  life  of 
both.  (4)  While  emphasizing  the  right  of  the  individual  to  de- 
velopment, Froebel,  with  Hegel,  clearly  recognized  that  only  in 
the  spiritual  community  of  human  institutions,  the  home,  the 
school,  society,  the  state,  the  church,  does  the  individual  attain 
true  selfhood.  The  individual  in  any  stage  of  his  development 
is  an  organism  in  the  larger  organism  of  life.  The  center  of 
Froebel's  educational  theory  is  the  thought  of  the  individual, 
but  the  individual  regarded  from  the  twofold  point  of  view, 
as  a  partially  independent  unity,  and  as  part  of  a  larger  whole. 
To  keep  these  two  aspects  in  view  was  one  of  the  problems 
upon  which  his  mind  was  most  completely  set  in  the  working 
out  of  his  educational  ideas:  to  balance  the  notions  of  self- 
realization  and  of  membership  in  a  more  inclusive  unity.  His 
thought  is  perhaps  more  adequately  expressed  by  saying  that 
the  individual  at  any  state  of  his  existence  is  in  a  process  of 
organization  or  unification.  (See  Butler,  Status  of  Education 
at  the  Close  of  the  Century,  in  N.  E.  A.  Proceedings,  1900;  Dewey, 
The  School  and  Society;  Harris,  How  the  School  Strengthens  the 
Individuality  of  the  Pupil,  in  Educational  Review,  October,  1902  , 
Howison,  On  the  Correlation  of  Elementary  Studies,  in  Report  of 
Commissioner  of  Education,  1895-96.) 

Other  conceptions  which  form  integral  elements  in  the 
thought  of  Froebel  and  which  can  here  merely  be  named  in 
briefest  form  are  the  following:  (i)  The  conception  of  the  unity 
and  continuity  of  (i)  mental  development,  (ii)  educational 
factors,  (iii)  educative  materials.  (2)  The  demand  that  the 
doctrine  of  principles  direct  its  attention  not  to  cognition  by 
itself,  but  to  the  activity  of  psychical  life  as  a  whole.  The 
standard  of  attainment  is  not  therefore  intellectual,  but  spiritual. 
(3)  The  conception  of  the  educational  process  as  possible  be- 
cause the  self  and  the  world  are  not  mechanical  disparates  but 
rather  elements  in  one  organic  spiritual  process.  (4)  The  at- 
tempt to  work  out  a  systematic  plan  for  the  upbuilding  of  ex- 
perience in  harmony  with  the  idealistic  view  of  consciousness  as 
a  self-active  principle  in  the  creation  of  an  intellectual  and  moral 


94  Teachers  College  Record  [304 

world.  The  conception  of  man  not  as  mere  knower  but  as 
worker.  (5)  Education  as  a  process  of  social  interaction.  The 
work  of  the  mother  in  the  education  of  the  child.  Froebel 
planned  for  parents  and  teachers  as  well  as  for  children.  The 
kindergarten  as  a  society  of  children,  engaged  in  play  and  its 
various  forms  of  self-expression,  through  which  the  child  comes 
to  learn  something  of  the  values  and  methods  of  social  life, 
without  as  yet  being  burdened  by  too  much  of  intellectual 
technique.  The  education  of  the  individual  conceived  as 
growth  in  freedom  (personality)  through  the  organization  of 
interests,  purposes,  activities  into  a  system  of  life.  Education 
is  a  process  of  mediation  between  the  individual  and  the  law  or 
comprehensive  order  of  things  (natural  and  human)  in  such  a 
way  that  the  law  lives  in  the  individual  not  as  constraint  but  as 
nature,  and  he  only  is  truly  a  person  whose  impulses  are  con- 
formed to  the  law  of  all  life.  (6)  The  idea  of  education  through 
processes  rather  than  through  products.  (7)  The  significance 
of  the  principle  of  imitation  in  the  upbuilding  of  experience. 
(8)  The  conception  that  education  by  development  demands 
the  closest  conformity  of  the  education  to  the  nature  of  the 
individual.  For  this  reason  it  must  closely  follow  the  child-soul 
through  all  the  successive  stages.  The  primary  aim  is  to 
awaken  and  to  stimulate  the  innate  principle  of  life  in  its  de- 
velopment according  to  eternal  laws.  It  is  the  mother  upon 
whom,  first  of  all,  this  duty  devolves:  the  home  thus  becoming 
invested  with  a  deep  and  far-reaching  significance  as  the  first 
seat  of  culture.  (9)  Psychology  of  educative  materials.  The 
educative  significance  of  play.  (10)  The  kindergarten  as  a 
social  institution.  (11)  The  educative  significance  of  nature. 
For  Froebel  the  phenomena  of  nature  are  not  expressionless. 
The}^  possess  a  language,  visible  and  audible,  which  their  mere 
reduction  to  law  does  not  wholly  exhaust,  but  is  disclosed  to 
the  feeling,  to  the  intuition,  to  the  mise  passiveness  of  the  soul. 
(12)  Religion  as  the  fundamental  disposition  governing  the  in- 
dividual's participation  in  the  spiritual  life.  (13)  His  insistence 
upon  service  as  the  goal  of  education.  (14)  His  vindication  of 
the  sacredness  and  original  soundness  of  human  nattire.  (15) 
The  conception  of  life  in  its  entirety  as  one  great  educational 
opportunity,    and    of   the    various    institutions,    home,    school, 


305]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froehel       95 

society,  the  state,  the  chtirch  as  instruments  in  the  realization 
of  this  larger  human  culture. 

II.  In  illustration  of  the  difficulties  which  Froebel  encoun- 
tered in  attempting  to  formxUate  his  educational  ideas  there  may 
be  mentioned  his  strange  terminology,  in  the  use  of  which  he  was 
influenced  by  Krause;  his  lack  of  literary  form;  "his  absurd 
etymologies;  his  lapses  into  artificial  symboUsm;  his  puerile 
analogies  and  formal  allegories."  There  are,  however,  more 
serious  difficulties  in  his  thought,  difficulties  which  seem  to  lie 
in  the  way  of  an  indiscriminate  acceptance  of  his  as  a  thoroughly 
consistent  and  satisfactory  theory  of  education.  Certain  of  these 
difficulties  should  be  briefly  referred  to : 

(a)  It  was  admitted  above  that  Froebel  never  succeeded  in 
giving  to  his  philosophy  of  education  the  roimded  completeness 
of  scientific  system.  In  Herbart  we  find  the  trained  philosopher, 
thoroughly  alive  to  the  need  as  well  as  the  nature  of  system,  and 
anxious  according  to  the  custom  of  his  day  to  show  the  educa- 
tional implications  of  his  general  philosophical  theory.  It  is  but 
natural,  therefore,  that  Herbart 's  educational  doctrines  should 
be  given  to  us  in  a  highly  organized  form.  Froebel,  however, 
resembles  Herder,  Schelling,  and  the  Romanticists  generally  in 
his  inability  to  keep  his  poetic,  his  philosophic,  and  his  religious 
ideas  apart.  Logic,  ethics,  psychology,  epistemology  are  all 
fused  together  by  him,  as  so  often  by  Plato,  in  a  semi-religious 
synthesis.  The  philosophic  spirit  and  a  large  measure  of 
philosophic  insight  were  his,  but  not  the  power  of  philosophic 
exposition  or  of  selecting  an  adequate  vehicle  for  the  transmis- 
sion of  his  ideas.  Much  of  his  thinking  is  the  outcome  of  the 
true  Romantic  impulse  to  re\'^el  in  a  content  attained  through 
inttiition  and  symbolism  rather  than  as  a  result  of  critical  re- 
flection. The  natural  trend  of  his  mind  was  rather  in  the 
direction  of  great  symboHc  intuitions  than  of  the  somewhat  arid 
ways  of  critical  analysis. 

(6)  Permeating  Froebel's  conception  of  the  educational  pro- 
cess and  the  educative  materials  are  lurking  certain  ideas  which 
not  only  endanger,  but  which  to  all  appearances  are  in  flat  con- 
tradiction to  the  monistic  view  of  reaUty  upon  which  his  general 
philosophy  is  based.  It  was  implied  in  preceding  sections  that 
the  position  of  idealistic  monism  affords  on  the  whole  a  more 


96  Teachers  College  Record  [306 

satisfactory  basis  for  a  philosophy  of  education  than  does 
pluralistic  realism,  and  chiefly  because  Realism  while  conceiving 
the  Absolute  not  as  one  but  as  many  independent  realities  asserts 
the  possibility  of  their  real  communion  with  one  another. 
Idealism  (and  this  is  in  harmony  with  the  doctrine  of  evolution) 
asserts  that  it  is  impossible  to  view  man  and  nature,  the  social 
and  the  natural  orders,  as  isolable  in  any  other  than  an  ideal  way. 
In  this,  moreover,  Idealism  is  supported  by  indubitable  facts 
connected  with  the  evolution  of  the  religious  and  the  aesthetic 
consciousness,  of  the  sciences,  and  of  the  commercial  and  in- 
dustrial evolution  of  society.  The  question,  then,  to  be  asked 
concerning  the  thought  of  Froebel  is  this:  Is  the  dualistic  con- 
ception of  the  individual's  environment,  nature  and  humanity, 
presupposed  throughout  his  interpretation  of  studies  and  in  the 
gifts  and  occupations,  consistent  with  the  general  philosophical 
position  fundamental  to  Froebel's  system,  and,  if  it  is  not  con- 
sistent, does  it  furnish  us  a  philosophical  and  unitary  principle 
by  which  to  determine  educational  materials?  With  Kant, 
Froebel  seems  still  to  accept  a  dualism  between  mind  and  nature 
(nature,  as  physical  environment,  or  so-called  objects  in  space 
apart  from  mind).  According  to  the  idealistic  monism  under- 
lying his  thought  nature  is  not  something  which  merely  encom- 
passes or  surrounds  man  or  society  in  a  mechanical  way;  it  is 
something  which  enters  organically  into  the  very  makeup  of 
human  Ufe.  Nature  without  man  is  blind:  man  without 
nature  is  an  impossibility.  Nattire  and  man  are  not  two  en- 
tities,—  a  belief  from  which  Kant  never  entirely  freed  himself, — 
but  terminal  aspects  of  one  spiritual  process.  Nature,  then, 
in  the  philosophical  and  ethical  sense  means  for  idealism  the 
processes  and  materials,  not  which  lie  beyond  or  external  to  social 
life,  but  which  essentially  and  organically  condition  it.  In  the 
educational  sense,  nature  means  the  realization  (as  worths)  and 
comprehension  (as  means)  of  these  same  processes  and  materials. 
To  admit  that  in  educational  theory  this  separation  of  mind  and 
nature  is  a  matter  of  no  importance  is  to  deny  the  significance 
of  Idealism  for  educational  theory,  and  to  forfeit  the  benefits  to 
be  gained  from  the  attempts  of  Aristotle,  Kant,  Fichte,  and 
Hegel  to  reconcile  the  apparent  opposites,  mind  and  nature, 
soul  and  body,  freedom  and  law,  natural  inclination  and  moral 


307]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       97 

eflfort,  mechanism  and  teleology,  nature  and  cultiire,  as  stages 
through  which  the  spiritual  order  is  realized.  (See  also  the  gen- 
eral discussion  of  the  Kantian  epistemology,  Chap.  VI,  sec.  4.) 

(c)  The  results  of  the  same  dualistic  tendency  in  Froebel 's 
thought  may  be  noted  in  a  slightly  different  form  in  seeking  an 
answer  to  the  question,  Has  Froebel  adjusted  in  a  satisfactory 
way  his  threefold  conception  of  the  Gifts  (to  take  these  as 
typical),  first,  as  the  medium  through  which  the  individual 
comes  to  an  intellectual  mastery  of  objects  in  space ;  second,  as 
divided  into  the  life,  knowledge,  and  beauty  forms,  a  distinction 
at  times  approaching  a  separation  analogous  to  the  divisions  of 
the  faculty  psychology ;  third,  as  mediating  to  the  individual 
typical  forms  of  social  experience  ?  In  seeking  an  answer  to  this 
question  it  is  necessary  to  keep  in  mind  several  factors  which 
are,  in  reality,  implicit  in  Froebel's  general  philosophical  posi- 
tion: (i)  The  continuity  of  development.  (2)  Froebel's  demand 
that  we  are  to  "give  to  each  stage  that  which  the  stage  de- 
mands." (3)  The  need  of  educative  as  well  as  mere  disciplinary 
activity.  (4)  Without  the  relation-giving  action  of  mind  there 
would  be  no  objective-world.  (5)  This  relation-giving  function 
is  not  merely  individual  but  social.  (6)  The  fact  that  the  con- 
scious distinction  between  man  and  nature  is  itself  the  result  of  a 
process,  arising  only  through  later  reflection,  and  that  the  young 
child  is  not  yet  prepared  for  the  specialization  or  isolation  (pi 
norms,  ends,  and  values,  on  the  one  side,  and  of  the  processes 
or  materials  through  which  these  norms,  ends,  and  values  are 
realized)  demanded  by  the  divisions  between  man  and  nature. 
(7)  The  fact  that  the  child's  life  goes  on  in  the  medium  or  en- 
vironment of  society. 

To  a  degree,  then,  in  Froebel's  interpretation  of  the  Gifts 
and  Occupations  the  old  dualism  of  mind  and  nature  still  seems 
to  persist.  Alongside  this  dualistic  conception  is  one  more  in 
harmony  with  the  idealistic  psychology  of  Fichte  and  of  modern 
ideaHstic  psychology  generally, — a  conception,  however,  which 
Froebel  did  not  always  consistently  maintain.  The  more  im- 
portant characteristics  of  this  position  may  be  indicated  in  some 
detail,  in  order  that  we  may  have  a  standard  by  which  to  es- 
timate Froebel's  actual  achievement; 

(a)  The  conception  maintains  a  functional  view  of  mind,  i.e., 


98  Teachers  College  Record  [308 

in  the  wider  sense,  namely,  that  the  mind  is  no  isolated  entity:  it 
is  not  something  which  has  activity;  it  is  activity.  We  no 
longer  speak  of  mind  and  its  faculties,  of  functions  and  that 
which  has  ftmctions.  The  mind  is  real  only  in  its  activity,  or 
rather,  its  activity,  its  functioning,  is  its  reality.  The  mind  or 
self  is  activity  operating  in  intrinsic  relations  to  social  situations, 
to  a  larger  social  order  (i.e.,  social  in  the  widest  as  well  as  the 
narrowest  sense).  The  general  position  of  the  view  of  the  soul 
as  thus  conceived  is  that  in  determining  what  consciousness  is 
recourse  must  be  had  to  an  examination  of  what  consciousness 
does.  It  attempts  to  escape  the  extreme  positions  of  both  (i) 
Empiricism,  according  to  which  the  mind  is  conceived  as  a  pro- 
duct rather  than  a  principle,  and  of  (2)  Rationalism,  which  in 
one  form  or  other  conceives  of  the  soul  as  a  pre-existing  spiritual 
entity,  endowed  with  capacities  or  faculties,  prior  to  the  exercise 
of  such  faculties  or  capacities,  existing  behind  these  as  a  kind  of 
(transcendental)  substance  or  substratum,  and  before  the  ob- 
jective world  has  as  yet  disturbed  the  pure  unity  of  its  essence. 
The  view  of  evolutionary -idealism  is  not  that  the  mind  is  mere 
product  or  epiphenomenon,  nor  a  mere  transcendental  spiritual 
substance  which  (so  far  as  actual  experience  is  concerned)  is  a 
pure  abstraction,  but  that  it  is  a  concrete  specific  activity  con- 
stantly directed  to  the  accomplishment  of  something  and  not  only 
the  bearer  of  the  experience  process,  but  an  efficient  agent  in  its 
furtherance.  From  this  general  conception  it  follows  (i)  that 
in  the  mental  Ufe,  as  an  organic  unity,  consciousness  cannot 
(without  a  complete  departure  from  reality)  be  abstracted  from 
its  relations.  Prior  to  and  apart  from  objective  experience 
consciousness  is  an  illusion.  It  will  thus  be  apparent  how 
necessary  it  is  in  the  analysis  of  experience  to  keep  in  mind  its 
organic  unity:  in  other  words,  the  organic  relation  between 
consciousness  and  its  object,  the  agent  and  the  situation  or  con- 
ditions in  which  the  activity  proceeds.  (2)  That  just  as  the  life 
elements,  organism  and  environment  (compare  the  act  of 
breathing,  which  is  a  functional  coordination  of  the  lungs  as 
organ  and  air  as  environment),  so  the  mental  life  is  a  con- 
tinuous coordination  or  functioning  of  two  elements,  self  and 
environment.  Herein  we  see  the  difficulty  in  the  Empirical 
and    Rationalistic    position.     Just    as    some    biologists    would 


309]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel       99 

identify  function  with  organ  alone,  making  environment  purely- 
external,  or  with  environment  alone,  making  the  organ  simply 
product,  so  the  Empiricist  would  make  the  self  a  product  and 
not  a  principle,  while  the  Rationalist  would  make  the  soul  a 
principle  existing  prior  to  its  contact  with  the  objective  world, 
and,  at  most,  maintaining  only  incidental  relations  with  the 
latter.  On  the  other  hand,  the  evolutionary  view  of  mind 
maintains  that  the  relation  of  consciousness  or  self  to  objective 
experience  or  environment  is  absolute  and  intrinsic.  An 
isolated  consciousness  is  no  consciousness  at  all:  it  is  a  self- 
contradiction.  (3)  Since  the  mental  life  is  not  the  outcome  of 
a  predetermined  self  upon  an  external  environment,  or  of  the 
adjustment  of  the  self  to  a  predetermined  environment,  neither 
the  self  nor  the  environment  are  eternally  fixed  in  themselves, 
but  both  change  in  the  movement  of  the  life-process.  In  the 
functional  movement  of  the  mental  life  both  the  self  and  the 
environment  are  modified  and  determined.  Both  are  essen- 
tially transitional,  in  a  continual  process  of  becoming.  The  self 
is  real  in  so  far  as  it  continues  to  act,  to  become,  to  progress. 
(4)  Self-consciousness  is  not  a  subsequent  or  higher  growth  of 
consciousness,  but  in  rudimentary  form  at  least  is  a  quality 
of  all  consciousness.  It  is  consciousness  with  the  emphasis  on 
the  subject  rather  than  the  object,  the  agent  rather  than  the 
situation. 

(b)  Sensations  and  ideas  are  not  ends  in  themselves:  they 
are,  so  to  speak,  clues  or  stimuli  in  directing  activity.  All 
knowledge  involves  both  percepts  and  concepts,  sensations  and 
ideas  and  their  combination.  These  may  be  discussed  from  the 
point  of  view  of  (i)  origin,  (ii)  content,  (i)  Sensations:  (i)  The 
biologist  maintains  that  the  organs  of  sense  had  their  origin  in 
the  problem  of  the  life-process.  Such  variations  as  were  of 
service  in  the  life-struggle  were  selected;  others,  offering  no 
positive  contribution,  were  discarded.  The  sense-organs  were 
thus  in  their  origin  organs  of  adjustment,  methods  of  economy; 
through  natural  selection  their  increasing  perfection  meant  more 
perfect  adjustment,  i.e.,  increasing  self -maintenance  on  the  part 
of  those  possessing  them.  Thus,  biologically,  the  knowledge 
mediated  by  the  sense-organs  had  its  origin  in  the  needs  of  the  life- 
process;    it  was  an  instrument  of  control,  in  securing  food  or 


loo  Teachers  College  Record  [310 

escaping  danger,  (ii)  In  the  child  again,  activities  in  the  form 
of  inherited  instincts  and  impulses  precede  sensations.  His 
characteristic  is  impulsiveness;  he  is  essentially  a  motor  being. 
The  child's  curiosity  is  preparatory  to  some  activity,  a  prelude 
to  behavior.  It  is  ever  in  the  interest  of  some  experiment  on 
the  part  of  some  bodily  organ,  usually  the  hand  or  mouth.  For 
him,  the  objects  of  his  environment  are  the  particular  activities 
which  they  suggest  and  distinct  sensations  are  the  sensible  news 
0}  his  behavior,  (iii)  In  the  adult  consciousness,  likewise,  the 
sensation  is  a  sign,  and  has  significance  only  as  part  of  a  larger 
whole.  When  do  we  have  sensations?  Examine  such  experi- 
ences as  taking  the  car,  looking  at  your  watch,  the  clock's 
ceasing  to  tick,  walking  over  an  unaccustomed  road,  moving 
the  ears,  etc.  It  will  be  found  in  such  experiences  that  sensa- 
tions either  regulate  activity,  or  are  signs  within  the  experience 
circuit,  i.e.,  the  retrospective  reference;  or,  through  their  appeal 
to  attention,  they  furnish  the  materials  of  a  new  problem,  i.e., 
their  prospective  reference.  (2)  Ideas.  Only  a  very  brief  out- 
line can  be  made  in  this  connection.  The  concept  or  idea,  as  is 
true  of  sensation,  has  a  retrospective  as  well  as  a  prospective 
reference.  It  is  (i)  a  register  of  past  experience,  a  habit,  a 
method  of  ordering  sensations.  On  the  other  hand,  an  idea 
embodies  (ii)  a  plan  of  action.  Its  function  within  experience  is 
not  only  to  organize  experience,  but  to  institute  or  furnish  the 
method  of  future  experience.  Its  function,  therefore,  is  essen- 
tially mediatory,  instrumental.  Thus  the  definition  of  idea  is 
in  terms  of  its  function,  of  its  position  in  the  movement  of  ex- 
perience. It  is  the  instrument  of  the  growth  of  experience  from 
the  less  rich  and  less  definite  to  the  richer  and  more  definite 
forms.  To  illustrate,  take  the  judgment.  The  pencil  is  sharp. 
Sharp  is  an  idea,  but  sharpness  does  not  exist  in  reality;  only 
as  a  quality,  emphasized  within,  or  abstracted  from  experience. 
Why,  then,  form  the  'idea'  or  'concept'  of  that  which  does 
not  exist?  Simply  because  the  idea,  so  emphasized  or  ab- 
stracted, will  furnish  a  sign,  a  plan,  a  method  of  future  action. 
The  idea  'sharp,'  then,  is  ultimately  instrumental  to  a  larger 
experience  process,  e.g.,  that  of  writing.  Ideas,  then,  in  pro- 
viding a  method  or  plan  of  action  make  for  economy  within  ex- 
perience,  enable  us  to   anticipate   and  thereby   control  future 


31 1]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel     loi 

experiences.  They  are  thus  constructions  of  the  past  and  of  the 
future.  Herein  is  their  kinship  with  science.  Ideas  are  plans 
of  action.  Laws  of  science  are  constructions  of  the  past  and 
future  behavior  of  those  realities  with  which  man  has  to  deal. 
Ideas  and  sciences  are  thought -constructions  for  the  registration 
and  control  of  experience.  Sensations,  ideas,  science,  are  thus 
seen  to  be  regulative  and  mediatory  in  the  conduct  of  life. 

(c)  The  child  gets  at  nature  through  human  life,  through  a 
human  medium.  Its  approach  to  the  world,  its  normal  study 
of  it,  is  teleological.  This  conclusion  of  philosophical  idealism, 
namely,  that  nature  and  civilization,  matter  and  mind,  body 
and  soul,  are  not  self-subsisting,  isolated  entities  (or  at  best  only 
mechanically  related),  but  are  rather  complementary  phases  of 
one  spiritual  movement,  seems  to  be  confirmed  in  a  unique  way 
when  we  turn  to  the  interpretation  of  any  one  of  the  great  lines 
of  human  interest  and  endeavor.  Only  the  barest  suggestion 
of  such  lines  of  possible  inquiry  and  confirmation  can  be  given 
here.  It  will  be  noted  how  in  sympathy  they  are  with  the 
thought  of  Hegel  and  the  spirit,  if  not  always  the  letter,  of  Froebel. 
(i)  The  religious  influence  of  external  nature  has  in  almost 
every  age  cooperated  in  producing  in  man  the  belief  that  within 
or  behind  so-called  material  things  there  is  a  spiritual  reality. 
Idealism  finds  in  the  great,  historical  religions  a  striking  con- 
firmation of  its  own  central  position  that  the  universe  of  nature, 
though  for  purposes  of  description,  distinguished  as  material,  is 
fundamentally  a  manifestation  of  spirit.  Through  countless 
generations,  then,  nature,  working  in  and  through  the  religious 
consciousness,  has  exercised  a  unique  influence  in  the  education 
of  the  human  soul.  (2)  Another  striking  confirmation  of  the 
idealist's  contention  of  the  ultimate  kinship  and,  hence,  possible 
community  between  man  and  nature,  might  be  found  in  tracing 
the  growth  of  man's  aesthetic  interest  in  nature,  in  what  is  some- 
times called  the  poetic  interpretation  of  nature.  Just  as 
through  science  nature  is  seen  to  be  interpenetrated  with 
rationality,  so  through  art  and  poetry  in  their  process  of  ideal- 
ization has  it  been  shown  to  be  suggestive  of  moral  and  assthetic 
values.  (3)  Through  the  development  of  economic  and  in- 
dustrial life  in  modern  times  the  dependence  of  man  on  nature 
in  the  realization  of  his  purposes  and  the  perpetuation  of  his 


I02  Teachers  College  Record  [312 

experience  is  being  more  and  more  acknowledged  and  under- 
stood. Industrial  and  commercial  life  are  forcing  upon  the 
mind  of  man  a  newer  and  higher  teleological  interpretation  of 
his  natural  environment,  and  proving  to  him  how  completely 
human  life  and  progress  are  involved  in  the  subjugation  of 
nature.  (4)  Science,  again,  and  Idealism  meet  on  common 
ground.  Science  rests  on  the  belief  that  there  is  a  correspond- 
ence between  the  course  of  nature  and  the  mind  of  man.  This 
faith  is  its  presupposition:  the  establishment  of  the  correspond- 
ence is  its  goal.  The  sciences  so  far  developed  are  an  evidence 
of  the  afl5.nity  between  the  intelligence  of  man  and  the  intelligible 
order  of  nature.  It  is  only  necessary  to  refer  to  its  history  to 
show  in  what  manifold  ways,  though  through  a  discipline  both 
severe  and  prolonged,  the  struggle  for  scientific  knowledge  has 
been  fitted  to  discipline  the  intelligence  and  the  moral  nature  of 
man. 

It  was  said  above  that  the  child  gets  at  nature  through  human 
life,  through  a  human  medium.  In  the  process  the  child  contri- 
butes the  activity  (at  first  instinctive  or  impulsive) ;  society  (nature 
and  humanity)  contributes  the  situations,  the  norms,  the  system  of 
purposes.  (Compare  the  positions  especially  of  Fichte,  Schleier- 
macher,  and  Hegel.)  A  further  illustration  of  the  organic  con- 
nection between  what  Froebel  designates  the  inner  and  outer 
may  be  given  in  a  consideration  of  the  teleological  relation  of 
mind  and  body.  "With  the  idealism  which  Froebel  strove  to 
appropriate  it  is  assumed  that  the  essence  of  being  is  one  in 
kind,  and  spiritual.  Between  mind  and  body  there  is  no  es- 
sential antagonism  or  opposition.  The  mind  is  no  fixed  entity 
separable  from  matter.  If  we  are  to  trust  our  experience  matter 
cannot  be  as  foreign  to  consciousness  as  is  ordinarily  believed. 
If  the  analysis  made  above  be  true,  mind  and  matter,  soul  and 
body,  are  terminal  aspects  of  a  unitary,  living,  spiritual  ex- 
perience, organic  throughout,  and  in  which  the  so-called  nervous 
system,  body,  or  matter,  is  instrumental,  the  machinery  of  its 
growth,  and  of  its  expanding  life.  Many  look  upon  the  physical 
as  something  set  over  against  the  spiritual,  something  that 
restricts,  confines,  enslaves.  According  to  the  view  expressed 
here  the  physical,  with  its  senses  and  stimuli,  is  the  very  means 
whereby  we  gain   freedom.     The  child,  feeling  the  pain  from 


313]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel      103 

the  finger  thrust  into  the  flame,  and  thereby  restraining  itself 
afterwards,  is  not  limited  by  its  bodily  senses  or  its  nervous 
system.  Rather  is  its  nervous  system  the  very  instrument 
through  which  its  freedom  is  gained.  Moreover,  just  as  the 
body,  and  nature  itself,  are  instrumental  to  the  self,  and  no 
mere  hindrance,  in  like  manner  is  the  machinery  of  institutions 
no  mere  hindrance,  but  the  very  medium  of  escape  for  the 
individual  from  the  domination  of  mere  instinct  and  impulse  to 
conscious  self-determination.  No  adequate  statement  of  free- 
dom as  a  ready-made  faculty  or  power  of  mind  can  be  given  in 
a  paragraph,  if  at  all.  Yet  when  we  take  the  so-called  physical 
and  institutional  life,  not  as  mere  external  and  antagonistic 
opposites,  but  rather  from  the  teleological  and  instrumental  point 
of  view,  we  may  realize  more  fully  the  significance  of  the  most 
apparent  and  the  most  fundamental  fact  in  experience,  namely, 
that  the  consciousness  of  self  implies  the  consciousness  of  the 
not -self,  and  grows  with  it,  and  by  means  of  it.  Thus  conceiving 
the  self  and  the  world  as  the  terminal  aspects  of  a  living  organic 
reality  or  experience  and  communicated  to  us  (through  con- 
sciousness) in  inseparable  correlation  we  can  regard  neither  one 
as  a  resultant  of  the  other.  Together  they  constitute  a  functional 
manifestation  of  a  unity  which  is  their  common  and  absolute 
ground.  What,  then,  is  enforced  in  this  section  is  the  im- 
possibility of  conceiving  a  soul  or  mind  in  itself,  a  pre-existing 
entity,  or  of  matter  in  itself,  a  self-contained  existence.  Keep- 
ing by  experience  we  recognize  that  subject  and  object  are  never 
met  by  us  apart.  They  are  distinctions  within  a  unity,  but  not 
different  or  antagonistic  entities.  And  it  scarcely  need  be  re- 
marked in  passing  that  the  doctrine  outlined  above  is  neither 
materialism  nor  subjective  idealism.  It  is  an  attempt  to  construe 
teleologically  the  relation  of  mind  and  matter,  self  and  not -self, 
the  individual  and  institutions,  without  obliterating  their 
differences  nor  reducing  one  to  the  other;  securing  the  reality 
of  both  in  a  life  whose  variety  is  unity  and  whose  essence  is 
spiritual.  The  ultimate  reality  of  the  finite  self  lies  in  its 
meaning  (its  functional  relation  and  activity)  not  for  itself  alone 
but  as  part  of  the  entire  system  of  Absolute  experience  (so-called 
physical,  social,  etc.).  To  begin  with,  the  self  is  an  organ  that 
through  its  endowment  of  consciousness  may  erect  itself  into 


104  Teachers  College  Record  [314 

membership  in  the  organic,  spiritual  system  of  universal  ex- 
perience or  activity,  which  in  turn  is  to  be  conceived  as  neces- 
sarily differentiating  and  expressing  itself  in  the  growing  life  of 
its  parts.  If  the  Absolute  is  conscious  life,  it  must  also  be 
social.  But  a  "society"  is  not  a  mere  aggregation  of  parts:  to 
say  that  it  is  an  organism  is  to  assert  something  quite  different . 
Accepting  the  view  of  reality  as  an  organic  and  self -differentiat- 
ing unity,  the  finite  self  in  its  experience  declares  itself  as  a 
fundamental  differentiation  of  this  reality.  Just  as  in  the 
physical  organism  (only  the  imperfect  approximation  of  a  true 
organic  unity)  the  various  parts  or  differentiations,  in  a  sense, 
have  within  them  the  content  of  the  whole,  so  selves  or  persons, 
as  fundamental  differentiations  growing  into  self -consciousness, 
have  potentially  within  them  the  content  of  the  entire  organism 
of  reality,  though  of  course  not  in  the  same  way  that  the  organ- 
ism itself  contains  it.  In  himself  the  individual  self  is  naught, 
in  union  with  the  whole  of  reality  everything  is  potentially  his. 
As  a  spiritual  being,  therefore,  there  is  nothing  which  may  be 
regarded  as  the  individual's  exclusive  possession.  He  shares, 
participates  in  a  common  life.  This  is  the  community  of  the 
spiritual  life.  From  first  to  last  the  life  of  the  individual  is  a 
shared  life,  a  life  shared  with  nature,  and  human  beings.  But 
with  these  it  is  shared.  They  are  not  its  origin.  In  the  attempt 
to  account  for  the  origin  of  the  individual,  as  a  spiritual  process 
of  experience,  we  are  ultimately  forced  to  regard  this  process  of 
individual  life  as  a  process  of  realizing  the  universal  experience 
through  itself.  Human  experience  thus  becomes  a  progressive 
acquaintance  with  and  adjustment  to  Absolute  Reality. 

{d)  In  viewing  civilization  as  the  progressive  articulation  and 
realization  of  human  nature  which  still  persists  in  the  spiritual 
experience,  the  intellectual  interests,  the  habits  of  conduct  of 
the  present,  it  is  assumed  that  (i)  the  most  satisfactory  psy- 
chology of  race-development  is  a  psychology  of  action:  The  ulti- 
mate social  fact  is  "  men  acting  together  for  the  sake  of  interrelated 
ends."  These  ends  may  be  protection,  wealth,  worship,  what 
not;  man's  ever-increasing  wants  rising  into  desires  and  his 
perpetual  efforts  to  satisfy  those  wants.  But  back  of  this 
notion  of  men  in  functional  relation  to  one  another  and  to  their 
environment  we  cannot  go.     The  history  of  civilization  is  the 


315]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel      105 

history  of  human  achievement.  (2)  The  conditions  or  materials 
of  human  activity  are  nature.  Civihzation  is  ultimately  pos- 
sible because  man  and  nature  are  not  isolated  entities,  but 
rather  phases  of  one  spiritual  movement.  In  a  very  real  sense 
the  direct  influence  of  nature  upon  man  is  greatest  when  he  is 
in  the  primitive  stage  of  development.  In  the  process  of  social 
evolution  through  institutions,  the  growth  of  knowledge,  the 
increase  of  tools  and  inventions,  there  is  developed  a  psychical 
medium  through  which  the  direct  physical  influence  of  nature 
is  humanized  and  mediated.  Nature,  from  the  physiological 
point  of  view,  does  still  influence  the  individual  directly:  but 
psychically  or  educationally  nature's  influence  is  mediated 
through  the  process  of  social  life  of  which  the  individual  through- 
out his  career  is  a  member.  From  the  beginning  man  has  been 
in  some  kind  of  functional  relation  to  his  environment.  His 
life  has  presented  itself  to  him  as  a  series  of  problems  to  be 
solved:  and  these  problems  are  social  as  well  as  individual. 
Man's  achievements  are  social  achievements  and  have  therefore 
been  brought  about  by  some  form  of  social  action  and  coopera- 
tion. It  may  be  said,  then,  that  civilization,  or  culture,  repre- 
sents the  values,  norms,  ideals ;  nature  is  the  processes,  materials, 
the  means  of  their  realization.  It  is  the  methods  discovered  by 
man  in  the  course  of  his  experience  for  the  registration,  organi- 
zation, control,  and  perpetuation  of  his  experience.  It  has  thus 
a  retrospective  as  well  as  a  prospective  aspect.  In  civilization, 
therefore,  as  the  organization  of  human  life  thus  far  attained, 
there  are  certain  fundamental  methods  or  norms  which  are  in- 
herent in  its  natural  constitution  and  which  reproduce  them- 
selves in  all  its  manifold  forms.  In  the  analysis  of  these 
normative  elements,  Science,  Language,  Art  and  Literature, 
Institutions,  and  Religion,  these  must  be  continually  viewed  as 
inter -related  aspects  of  a  common  social  experience  or  activity: 
they  are  the  general  elements  of  civilization, — elements  which 
constitute  the  real  existence  of  the  concrete  and  organic  unity  of 
society.  Each  of  these  elements  has  its  retrospective  and  pros- 
pective reference:  each  represents  a  fundamental  habit  and 
accommodation  in  the  life  of  the  race.  All  together  they  are 
functional  elements  within  the  social  process,  mediating  agencies 
in  the  communication  or  transmission  of  experience,  instrumental 


io6  Teachers  College  Record  [316 

to  the  spiritual  life  of  man.  The  evolution  in  nature  and  in 
civilization  has  its  goal  in  the  elevation  and  expansion  of  the 
personal  life.  It  will  thus  be  recognized  how  necessary  to  any- 
adequate  statement  of  the  "Course  of  Study"  is  a  chart  of 
civilization, — a  morphological  or  psychological  presentation  of 
the  great  methods  or  norms  according  to  which  human  experience 
has  been  organized,  elevated,  and  expanded.  Adequately  to  state 
what  science,  art,  and  religion  mean  in  the  movement  of  the  in- 
dividual's experience,  it  is  ultimately  necessary  to  trace  their 
significance  in  the  movement  of  the  spiritual  experience  of 
the  race. 

12.  If  the  foregoing  be  a  fair,  though  brief,  statement  of  the 
position  of  evolutionary  idealism  it  will  be  possible  to  discover 
just  how  far  the  position  of  Froebel  coincides,  and  wherein  his 
system  tends  here  and  there  to  diverge  from  or  wholly  abandon 
the  conception  which  seems  to  the  evolutionary  idealist  to  be 
along  the  way  where  truth  lies.  The  important  questions,  then, 
to  ask  concerning  Froebel's  treatment  of  studies,  and  perhaps 
especially  of  the  gifts  and  occupations,  are  these:  (i)  Do  they, 
in  any  way,  force  upon  the  child  a  distinction  (between  man  and 
nature,  or  between  man  and  social  life)  which  is  the  result  of 
later  reflection  and  abstraction'^  (2)  Does  Froebel,  and  to  what 
degree,  divorce  sense  or  thought  training  from  the  normal  system 
of  activities  and  purposes, — activities  and  purposes  in  which 
alone  sensations  and  ideas  gain  their  significance  ?  If  such  be  the 
case,  such  training  must  ultimately  become  mechanical  and 
valueless  educationally,  producing,  indeed,  what  Dr.  Harris 
speaks  of  as  arrested  development.  What  is  to  be  our  standard 
of  sense  and  thought  training?  If  we  accept  the  voluntaristic , 
or  evolutionary -idealistic  position,  it  follows  that  for  the  child 
there  must  be  a  motive  to  activity,  an  outlet  beyond  itself, — a 
motive  which  forms  part  of  a  teleological  system.  Do  the  Gifts 
and  Occupations  (to  take  them  as  typical)  always  provide  a 
motive  sufficient  to  make  the  activity  of  the  child  significant? 
(Compare  the  criticisms  which  have  been  made  on  the  formalism 
of  the  Kantian  Ethics,  and  his  complete  separation  between 
reason  and  desire.)  Does  Froebel  in  the  Gifts  and  Occupations, 
to  any  degree,  return  to  the  intellectualistic  position  from  which 
he  was  attempting  to  get  away?     Does  Froebel  introduce  pre- 


317]    The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel     107 

maturely  the  technique  of  certain  activities  apart  from  their 
relation  to  or  significance  or  function  within  the  child's  ex- 
perience? Is  his  analysis  of  the  Gift,  for  the  most  part,  a 
logical  or  psychological  one  ?  Is  it  made  from  the  educator's  or 
from  the  learner's  point  of  view?  The  psychology  of  a  gift, 
occupation,  or  study,  implies  the  interpretation  of  the  experience, 
for  which  the  gift  or  study  stands,  from  the  genetic  point  of 
view,  i.e.,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  one  who  is  realizing  the 
experience;  whereas  the  logic  of  a  study  is  an  analysis  of  the 
experience  for  which  it  stands,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  one 
who  has  passed  through  the  experience.  (3)  Does  Froebel 
consistently  make  the  child,  as  an  active  social  being,  with 
needs,  impulses,  purposes  which  receive  their  interpretation  or 
fulfilment  through  social  life,  the  center  for  correlation,  or  does 
he  at  times  approach  the  intellectualistic  position  of  Herbart, 
and  make  not  activities  hut  ideas,  not  processes  hut  products,  the 
educative  centers?  (4)  Is  Froebel's  treatment  of  the  relations 
of  the  natural,  supernatural,  and  spiritual  worlds  consistent 
with  his  general  monistic  and  immanental  point  of  view?  Has 
he  adjusted  in  a  consistent  manner  one  to  the  other,  the  so- 
called  life,  knowledge,  and  beauty  forms  of  the  gifts  ? 

The  difficulties  inherent  in  Froebel's  treatment  of  the  sub- 
ject-matter of  instruction  may  now  be  briefly  summarized: 
(i)  His  failure  to  work  out  a  theory  of  knowledge  which  would  be 
consistent  with  his  general  philosophical  position.  (2)  His  fre- 
quent lapse  from  a  voluntaristic  psychology  to  a  psychology  of 
the  intellectualistic  type  of  Herhart.  (3)  His  failure  to  keep 
always  in  mind  the  implications  of  his  own  doctrine  of  the 
social  nature  of  consciousness.  (4)  His  failure  to  distinguish 
in  every  case  between  the  logic  of  studies  and  their  psychological 
aspect,  in  other  words,  between  studies  as  organized  social  ex- 
perience and  as  modes  of  self-realization. 

13.  A  further  difficulty  remains  to  be  mentioned,  the  diffi- 
culty arising  from  what  Dr.  Harris  speaks  of  as  the  biological 
analogy.  It  is  by  no  means  clear  that  Froebel's  thought  is  free 
from  the  error  due  to  the  analogous  application  of  the  categories 
from  one  level  of  existence  to  the  phenomena  of  a  different  order. 
This  tendency,  unfortunately,  led  him  into  all  sorts  of  diffi- 
culties.    "This  tendency  at  the  present  time,"  says  Professor 


io8  Teachers  College  Record  [318 

Baldwin,  "is  the  bane  of  contemporary  science  other  than 
physical.  The  theory  of  evolution  is  responsible  for  much  of 
this  cheap  apology  for  science — biology  used  in  sociology, 
physics  in  psychology,  the  concept  of  energy  in  history,  etc. 
Evolution  has  been  mistaken  for  reduction,  the  highest  genetic 
modes  being  'explained'  in  terms  of  the  lowest,  and  much  of 
the  explaining  done  by  'explaining  away'  most  that  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  highest.  And  biological  or  organic  evolution 
itself  is  a  storehouse  of  mistaken  analogies  brought  over  into 
the  moral  sciences." — (Development  and  Evolution,  p.  334.  See 
also  the  article  of  Dr.  Harris,  The  Danger  of  Using  Biological 
Analogies  in  Reasoning  on  Edticational  Subjects,  Proceedings 
N.  E.  A.,  1902.)  The  fact  must  not  be  overlooked  in  educa- 
tional theory  that  the  analogous  application  of  principles  from 
one  order  of  being  does  not  suffice  to  explain  the  phenomena  of 
a  higher  order  of  being.  The  standard  must  be  reversed  before 
final  interpretations  may  be  made.  The  biological  analogy 
may  be  used  as  preliminary  to  the  analysis  of  such  categories  as 
organism,  adaptation,  development,  environment,  etc.,  because 
it  is  helpful,  not  because  it  is  final.  The  fundamental  category 
of  self-consciousness,  the  working  hypothesis  of  philosophic  in- 
quiry, can  be  understood,  as  Descartes  long  since  pointed  out, 
only  through  its  own  light.  The  key  to  its  tmderstanding  is 
within  itself. 

The  difficulty  in  the  biological  analogy  as  it  affected  the 
thought  of  Froebel  is  seen  in  his  attempt  to  reconcile,  (i)  the 
conception  of  education  as  a  natural  development,  the  outcome 
of  the  silently  operative  laws  of  nature  (in  certain  statements,  it 
must  be  admitted,  that  Froebel  approaches  dangerously  near 
the  position  of  Rousseau,  according  to  whose  theory  education 
must  be  subordinated  to  nature  and  at  most  consists  in  the  re- 
moval of  obstructions) ;  and  (2)  the  Fichtean  conception  of 
education  which  views  it  as  essentially  a  self-determining'  activity 
in  the  face  of  oppositions  and  in  the  light  of  ever  worthier  ideals; 
in  other  words,  the  conception  which  demands  that  activity  be 
educative.  Though  Froebel  has  furnished  the  general  schema, 
and  has  perhaps  done  more  than  any  other  man  to  work  out  in  its 
principles  a  system  in  which  the  two  conceptions  (from  one  point 
of  view  they  are  the  conceptions,  on  the  one  hand  of  Leibnitz, 


319]     The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel      109 

and  of  Hegel  on  the  other)  are  adjusted,  it  is  not  clear  that,  their 
reconciliation  is  wholly  satisfactory.  The  attainment  of  such 
a  goal  presupposes  a  long  period  of  social  cooperation  as  well  as 
a  body  of  organized  knowledge  obtained  through  an  adherence 
to  the  criteria  and  methods  of  a  strictly  scientific  and  pliilo- 
sophic  procedure. 

14.  It  is  always  a  difficult  task  to  separate  what  is  per- 
manent from  what  is  transitory  in  our  inheritance  from  the 
past:  it  is  one,  however,  which  each  generation  has  to  under- 
take for  itself.  There  is  an  especial  reason  why  we  should 
bring  to  the  study  of  Froebel  a  truly  critical  and  yet  sympa- 
thetic attitude.  His  system  presents  a  type  of  educational 
organization  more  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  democratic 
society  than  any  other  hitherto  proposed.  He  himself  de- 
clared, indeed,  that  the  spirit  of  the  American  nationality  was 
the  only  one  in  the  world  with  which  his  method  was  in  com- 
plete harmony  and  to  which  its  legitimate  institutions  would 
present  no  barriers.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  asserted  at  the 
present  time  that  the  democratic  institutions  of  America  are  on 
trial.  Some  there  are  who  declare  that  the  school  has  been  un- 
able to  fulfil  its  part  as  the  bulwark  of  democracy.  The  question, 
therefore,  comes  to  us.  What  have  the  ideas  of  Froebel  accom- 
plished and  what  more  can  they  accomplish  in  meeting  the 
needs  of  American  civilization?  The  spread  of  his  ideas  during 
the  last  twenty  years  is  perhaps  the  most  significant  fact  in  the 
educational  life  of  America  during  that  period.  Froebel  saw  in 
a  unique  way  the  restorative  junction  of  the  child  and  child-nature 
in  the  spiritual  life  of  men  and  women,  and  came  to  regard  it  as 
the  deepest  source  of  human  welfare  and  improvement.  With 
singular  clearness  he  recognized  that  out  of  the  education  of  the 
spiritual  nature  alone  can  issue  that  life  and  force  and  spirit 
which  makes  for  democratic  civilization  in  the  highest  sense. 

As  is  well  known,  Froebel  worked  back  in  his  thought  from 
a  survey  of  education  in  general  to  the  education  of  a  particular 
period.  Had  time  and  opportunity  been  vouchsafed  to  him,  he 
would  doubtless  have  framed  a  scheme  of  development  in  which 
he  would  have  insisted  on  the  same  fundamental  principles 
found  in  his  formulation  of  the  educative  process  in  the  kinder- 
garten period.     In  this  country  at  the  present  time  the  watch- 


no  Teachers  College  Record  [320 

word  is  'educational  reconstruction'  all  along  the  line,  in  the 
elementary,  secondary,  and  higher  stages.     It  is,  therefore,  but 
natural  to  ask,  //  Froebel's  principles  are  operative  (in  the  main) 
in  one  stage,  are  they  not  also  valid  in  the  other  stages  as  wellf 
How  far  do  the  present  methods  and  processes  of  the  kinder- 
garten relate  themselves  to  the  home  life  and  experiences  of  the 
child,  and  to  what  extent  do  the  same  methods  prepare  the  way 
to  his  subsequent  development?    Just  here  is  the  opportunity 
once  more  for  those  who  will  lay  to  heart  and  live  by  the  spirit 
and  truth,  and  not  the  mere  letter,  of  Froebel's  thought.     The 
burden  of  criticism,  of  unceasing  study,  pursued  in  a  spirit  of 
openness  to  the  Hght  and  fidelity  to  the  truth,  must  not  be 
shirked.     If  Froebel's  thought  is  to  assist  in  the  educational 
reconstruction,  if  it  is  to  shape  the  new  education  as  it  should, 
it  must  itself  be  criticised  and  freed  from  certain  imperfect 
forms  in  which  it  has  become  embodied.     It  must  be  tnodified  or 
transformed  in  the  light  of  truths  brought  forward  by  science  and 
by  the  changed  conditions  of  the  Western  world, — ^truths  which  it 
cannot  afford  to  neglect.     We  live  spiritually,  says  Professor 
Royce.  by  out-living  our  formulas  and  by  thus  enriching  our  sense 
of  their  deeper  meaning.     The  thought  of  Froebel,  or  the  thought 
to  which  the  thought  of  Froebel  has  given  birth,  must  show 
itself  capable  of  adaptation  to  the  varied  conditions,  the  novel 
social  environment,  the  needs  and  aspirations  of  American  life: 
it  must  be  inclusive  not  exclusive:   it  must  show  itself  capable 
of  reconciling  its  adherents  with  themselves  and  of  Ufting  their 
minds  above  the  level  of  controversy ;  it  must  be  self-assertive, 
and  yet  self -critical,  disowning  the  unquestioning  attitude  of 
the  partisan.     Then  and  then  only  can  it  win  the  triumphs  for 
which  Froebel  hoped  and  labored,  and  for  which  his  true  dis- 
ciples hope  and  labor  in  turn. 

References: 

In  addition  to  the  works  of  Froebel,  and  the  references  noted  in 
the  text,  the  following  may  be  consulted:  Angell,  The  Relations  of 
Psychology  to  Philosophy;  Blow,  What  is  Froebel's  Generative 
Thought,  The  Kindergarten  Ideal  of  Nurture,  International  Kinder- 
garten Union,  Boston,  1900,  Letters  to  a  Mother,  also  Symbolic 
Education;  Bowen,  Froebel;  Butler,  Some  Criticism  of  the  Kinder- 
garten, in  Educational  Review,  October,  1899;  Dewey,  School  and 
Society,    The   Child  and   the   Curriculum,   Psychology  and  Social 


32 1]     The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froehel      iii 


Practice,  The  Educational  Situation,  The  Significance  of  the  Problem 
of  Knowledge,  Principles  of  mental  development  as  illustrated  in 
early  infancy.  Logical  conditions  of  a  scientific  treatment  of  morality, 
The  Interpretation  Side  of  Child  Study,  also  Elementary  School 
Record;  Eby,  The  Reconstruction  of  the  Kindergarten,  in  The  Peda- 
gogical Seminary,  July,  1900;  Francke,  History  of  German  Litera- 
ture; Harris,  Psychologic  Foundations  of  Education,  Kindergarten 
Psychology,  Social  Culture  in  the  Form,  of  Education  and  Religion, 
in  Educational  Review,  January,  1905;  also  various  articles  in 
Educational  Review  and  Proceedings  N.  E.  A.;  Hayward,  The 
Educational  Ideas  of  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel;  Hughes,  Froebel's 
Educational  Laws;  Mackenzie,  Outlines  of  Metaphysics;  Paulsen, 
Evolution  of  the  Educational  Ideal,  in  Forum,  1897;  Roberts  (Ed.), 
Education  in  the  Nineteenth  Century;  Royce,  The  Spirit  of  Modern 
Philosophy;  Russell,  German  Higher  Schools;  Snider,  Social  In- 
stitutions; Spalding,  Developm,ent  of  Educational  Ideas  in  the  Nine- 
teenth Century,  in  Educational  Review,  November,  1904;  Early 
History  of  the  Kindergarten  in  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  in  the  St.  Louis 
Annual  Report,  1878-79;  Vandewalker,  The  Kindergarten  and 
Higher  Education,  in  Educational  Review,  November,  1898;  Wel- 
ton,  A  Synthesis  of  Herbart  and  Froebel,  in  Educational  Review, 
Vol.  XX ;  Young,  Isolation  in  the  School,  also,  Scientific  Method  in 
Education. 

Further  problems  for  study: 

Literary  and  philosophic  influences  in  the  life  of  Froebel. 

Froebel's  indebtedness  to  Pestalozzi. 

Points  of  similarity  between  Froebel's  and  Leibnitz's  view  of 

knowledge. 
The  genesis   of    the  ethical  motive  underlying  the  Kinder- 
garten. 

5.  The  conception  of  the  individual  in  Rousseau  and  Froebel. 

6.  Froebel's  solution  of  the  equation  between  the  individual  and 
the  social. 

Play  and  work. 
The  child-study  of  Froebel. 
9.     The  psychology  of  Occupations. 
10.      Bases  of  the  Kindergarten  program. 

Froebel's  conception  of  education  in  relation  to  the  problem 
of  democracy. 
The  adjustment  of  the  Kindergarten  to  contemporary  needs. 


IX 
RETROSPECT  AND  CONCLUSION 

In  concluding  the  present  outline  attention  may  be  directed 
in  a  brief  manner  to  certain  truths  which  have  tended  to  re- 


112  Teachers  College  Record  [322 

appear  constantly  in  the  consideration  of  the  period  under 
review : 

(a)  Educational  ideas  are  not  artificially  produced;  they 
obey  the  laws  of  living  organisms,  are  transmitted  from  genera- 
tion to  generation,  and  bear  the  impress  of  each  succeeding  age. 
The  educational  ideas  of  the  period  from  Lessing  and  Herder  to 
Hegel  and  Froebel  were  the  outcome  of  the  life  and  spirit  of  the 
German  people  during  that  era  of  transition,  of  aspiration,  and 
of  reconstruction.  The  work  of  the  great  educators  of  the 
period  formed  one  of  the  most  potential  influences  in  a  period 
of  national  humiliation  in  kindling  in  the  German  people  an 
aspiration  towards  a  worthier  national  life.  Through  their  in- 
fluence education  became  one  of  the  vital  movements  of  the 
time. 

(6)  The  entire  period,  from  one  point  of  view  it  may  be  said, 
was  one  in  which  the  true  nature  of  the  individual  was  made 
known.  Rousseau,  Kant,  Lessing,  Goethe,  Pestalozzi,  Schleier- 
macher,  Fichte,  Herbart,  Hegel,  and  Froebel,  all  pleaded,  each 
in  his  way,  for  the  rights  of  the  individual.  The  period  was  one 
of  struggle  for  completeness  of  individuality.  But  the  lesson 
was  learned  that  the  ideal  of  a  perfect  personality  is  to  embrace 
the  ideal  of  a  perfect  society,  that  system  of  life  in  and  through 
human  institutions  in  which  are  garnered  the  spiritual  experience 
of  the  human  race.  Individual  culture,  in  its  true  sense,  can 
proceed  only  in  the  midst  of  a  well-organized  community. 

(c)  Closely  connected  with  the  new  doctrine  of  personality 
which  emerged  in  the  movement  from  Rousseau  to  Froebel,  is 
the  achievement  of  the  Idealistic  movement  from  Kant  to 
Hegel,  which  is  in  essential  agreement  with  another  great  achieve- 
ment in  philosophy,  namely,  that  of  Greece.  While  representing 
different  epochs  and  interpreting  different  types  of  human  ex- 
perience, the  import  of  both  is  essentially  the  same.  Each  is 
an  expression  of  that  idealism  which  finds  the  interpretation 
of  existence  in  mind  as  the  ideal  and  real  presupposition  of 
the  world.  This  idealism  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  of  Kant  and 
Hegel,  discovers  a  spiritual  principle  in  the  orderly  processes  of 
nature,  in  the  beauty  of  the  world,  in  the  consciousness  of  man, 
and  in  the  unity  and  continuity  of  the  spiritual  life  of  humanity. 
But  the  idealism  of  the  second  period  is  more  than  a  mere  re- 


323]     The  Educational  Theories  of  Herbart  and  Froebel      113 

affirmation  of  the  truth  arrived  at  in  the  first.  It  furnished  a 
new  and  fuller  demonstration,  rendered  possible  by  reason  of 
the  completer  experience,  an  experience  which  humanity  was 
forced  to  undergo  in  its  advance  to  finer  issues. 

(d)  The  movement  towards  democracy  which  gave  to  the 
nineteenth  century  its  most  distinctive  feature  had  its  origin  in 
the  increasing  sense  of  the  worth  of  the  individual,  his  spiritual 
and  social  significance,  his  rights  and  duties,  an  appreciation 
which  in  turn  had  its  origin  in  the  new  movements  in  philosophy, 
in  ethics,  in  religion,  in  science,  and  the  new  ideals  of  social 
amelioration  and  reconstruction. 

(e)  During  the  period  a  new  appreciation  of  the  meaning  and 
significance  of  civilization,  as  embodied  in  art,  science,  phil- 
osophy, literature,  and  religion,  as  the  means  of  development 
and  liberation  for  the  individual.  Instead  of  being  a  hindrance, 
as  Rousseau  supposed,  it  came  to  be  recognized  that  civilization 
represents  the  methods  so  far  organized  of  the  true  life  of  man. 
For  the  individual,  at  birth,  this  civilization,  this  system  of 
norms  and  of  methods,  is  his  spiritual  inheritance.  It  becomes 
his  spiritual  possession  in  a  large  and  fruitful  way  only  through 
education.  From  the  ethical  and  therefore  from  the  educa- 
tional point  of  view,  civilization  is  the  vicarious  offering  of  the 
race  to  the  individual,  to  be  used,  if  he  will  but  appropriate  it, 
for  the  perfecting  of  his  nature,  for  the  rich  and  varied  ex- 
pression of  the  personal  life. 

(f)  The  study  of  the  writers  of  this  period  makes  it  apparent 
that  ultimately  the  end  by  which  our  desires  are  determined 
rests  not  merely  on  the  process  of  psychological  development, 
but  in  the  very  nature  of  reality.  It  may  have  its  individual 
or  psychological  history  or  genesis:  being  from  this  point  of 
view  the  last  phase  of  the  development  of  desire :  but  ultimately 
or  metaphysically,  the  desire  is  intelligible  only  when  it  is 
recognized  as  conditioned  by  or  implied  in  the  very  nature  of 
things. 

(g)  The  thought  of  the  period  was,  moreover,  intensely 
human,  when  for  man  was  disclosed  the  soul  in  sense,  the  mys- 
tical beauty  of  nature,  the  divine  effluence  in  the  human  soul,  the 
spiritual  sanctions  of  sympathy  as  well  as  of  duty,  the  spirit  of 
the  little  child  long  waiting  for  recognition,  yet  the  interpreter 


114  Teachers  College  Record  [324 

of  the  past  as  well  as  the  hope  of  all  the  coming  years.  The 
literature  of  a  later  time  may  interpret  man  and  human  life 
more  subtly  and  with  greater  exactness:  not  perhaps  with 
greater  earnestness  or  nobility.  The  period  won  for  human 
thought  the  fact  that  the  permanent  reality  in  experience  is  per- 
sonality— ^not  any  longer  the  isolated  individual  of  Rousseau, 
but  the  person  of  Froebel  and  Hegel  entering  into  the  wealth  of 
the  world's  life,  or,  in  Shelley's  words: 

"Man,  one  harmonious  soul  of  many  a  soul, 
Whose  nature  is  its  own  divine  control. 
Where  all  things  flow  to  all  as  rivers  to  the  sea." 


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